


Eclipsed

by Jingletown



Category: K-pop, Mamamoo, exid, f(x), 소녀시대 | Girls' Generation | SNSD
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, IN SPACE!, Lesbians in Space, Outer Space, literally lesbians in space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:09:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 109,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jingletown/pseuds/Jingletown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kwon Jiyong is a dangerous criminal and the government has just placed a hundred million dollar bounty on his head.</p><p>The Pandora is an old ship, held together with faith and industrial-strength crazy glue, and Captain Ahn Elly, alongside best friends Moonbyul and Sunny, will go to the ends of the universe to find Jiyong, get that money and save their ride.</p><p>Known for their tracking abilities Taeyeon, Hwasa, Amber and Krystal are summoned by a man named Kim Heechul who says he'll double the government's bounty if they bring Jiyong to him instead.</p><p>Captain Heo Solji and her wife Dr. Seo Hyerin run the Unity, a ship packed with brilliant minds. They're rich, talented and arrogant. They know they'll find Jiyong and reap all the rewards the galaxy has to offer. To them, it's inevitable.</p><p>Notorious troublemakers Kim Hyuna and Kim Hyoyeon have been partners for years. They have all the weapons and tech (most of it not-so-legally obtained) and they're willing to bust any heads necessary to find Jiyong themselves.</p><p>But strange things happen in a galaxy this small, especially with so many strong women who fight hard and love harder, and this expensive space-race might be the thing to bring them all together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"Nothing like the rain, no_ _thing like the rain,_

_when you're in outer space..."  
_  

* * *

 

“No, no, you can’t fill it up all the way. No, listen to me, the gas will spill out the top. Fuck, wait, hold on. Let me show you.”

From fifteen feet away, up on the curb, Moonbyul rolled her eyes.

“Elly!” she shouted. “The man is a professional! He knows how to refuel a ship!”

Elly waved dismissively, ignoring her friend’s words in favor of barking directions over the shoulder of a stocky, bearded gas attendant. Moonbyul knew what that gesture meant. She’d known Elly long enough to know exactly what she was thinking – even though they were docked at one of the most popular refueling stations in the solar system, these experienced, well-trained employees couldn’t handle her precious Pandora.

As far as Moonbyul was concerned, she was only half-right. No one at the Geum Haneul station _could_ handle their ship but it wasn’t for any of the reasons Elly wanted to believe. The Pandora was a lot of things – creaky, dumpy, rusted – but precious had never been one of them.

“I still have to charge you for a full tank,” the guy said and Elly just shrugged. They were already hemorrhaging money trying to keep the ship stocked and in the air. What was another few dollars?

At the mention of their funds, Sunny looked to Moonbyul.

“How much money _do_ we have left?” Moonbyul just shook her head. That wasn’t a good sign. “Do we have enough to lodge somewhere tonight?” Sunny asked. Because she didn’t want to stick around to watch Elly explain the crack in the gas tank for the fifth time in as many weeks, she linked her arm with Moonbyul’s and lead them both towards the benches further down the sidewalk. “Or are we sleeping in the streets?”

Moonbyul shrugged.

“Depends on what our brave captain tells the mechanic,” Moonbyul said. She sighed deeply as she sat down, her body sore and her mind tired. The gas attendant appeared to have figured out the leak situation and Elly stood behind him, nodding and looking pleased. “We need a lot of repairs.”

“But we can’t afford a lot of repairs,” Sunny said, stating the obvious just to fill the air. She twirled a strand of bright red hair around her finger, fighting back the low hum of panic that always drummed through her when they stopped to refuel. Each stop brought them closer and closer to bankruptcy and with the way Elly had been talking about supplies lately, she knew things were getting dicey. “What needs fixing the most?”

Moonbyul rested heavily against the back of the bench, ready to fall asleep, out in the open, in the middle of hustling, bustling Geum Haneul. It was one of her favorite planets to visit, despite the high prices of everything except fuel, and she wished they could afford to stay longer.

She’d always had a soft spot for the metropolitan planets, especially the smaller ones. She’d grown up in the city and being surrounded by intense, high-strung people who rushed around and clawed their way to the top. She loved the lights and sounds of the city. She was an engineer – she even loved the perpetual smell of rocket fuel.

Most of all, Moonbyul loved the view. Geum Haneul literally meant “gold sky” and that was all there was to it. Back in Seoul, Moonbyul only saw a golden sky if that night’s sunset was feeling generous and flashy. On Geum Haneul, it was a constant. It was glitzy and indulgent, a rich, warm, yellow sky that stretched in every direction.

But that evening, sitting on a bench and watching Elly pull her cash-card from her back pocket, the sky just served to remind Moonbyul of the wealth they’d never have.

“Everything needs fixing, Sunny,” Moonbyul said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and rub her face with her hands.

The sad thing was it was barely an exaggeration. It would be easier for her to list the things that _didn’t_ need repairs or upgrades. Some of it was serious stuff – engine problems, aging thrusters, hardware defects. It was an old ship, one Elly bought secondhand after she graduated flight school. A lot of the issues were just plain wear-and-tear that couldn’t be avoided.

The rest of it was simply a matter of mind-numbing inconvenience. If you wanted the lights in the engine room to work without flickering or browning out, you needed to make sure there were no lights on in the kitchen or common room. If you wanted to work any of the small appliances – the toaster or the microwave – you could make sure the kitchen thermostat was set to exactly sixty-one degrees.

Moonbyul didn’t know if it was all just a case of faulty wiring or just bad luck but it reminded her of her first car when she was a teenager back in Korea. The radio didn’t work if the air-conditioner was on sometimes you had to floor it in reverse to make the steering wheel stop sticking.

She thought for sure that securing an advanced degree in engineering and taking to the skies meant that her days of trying to survive in a crappy, unreliable vehicle were over, but the Pandora was held together with duct tape and faith. And they were running out of both.

“I made a detailed list,” Moonbyul said after a pause, “researched the cost of each piece, and gave it to Elly. It’s her call.”

Sunny chewed her lip.

“You’re the engineer,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be making these decisions?”

“It’s her ship,” Moonbyul countered, a dull headache forming behind her eyes. “And it’s her money.” Sunny was three years Moonbyul’s senior but the younger girl still felt an inborne responsibility to reassure her. Of the Pandora crew, Moonbyul had the clearest head and the steadiest hand. She took it upon herself to make sure everyone was at peace and those days, it was getting harder and harder to do. Putting her hand on Sunny’s knee, she forced a tired smile. “Elly won’t screw us. She knows what she’s doing.”

“You’re right,” Sunny said after a beat. She shook her head, trying to shake away the woes that plagued her and clogged her senses like wet cement. “I think the lack of sleep is getting to me.”

Moonbyul slapped her knee, rising to her feet when she saw Elly approaching.

“We’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight,” she said, “and feel better in the morning.” Elly got closer and Moonbyul fought her frown.

Their captain didn’t look pleased.

“How’d it go?” Sunny asked.

“It’ll be ready by the time we wake up tomorrow,” Elly said, the confidence in her voice feigned with an ease and a believability that could only be achieved by someone who always felt like a mother lying to her kids to keep from scaring them. “With a totally-in-one-piece gas tank and a heating system that doesn’t leak mysterious but definitely poisonous liquid.” 

Moonbyul cracked her first genuine smile since entering Geum Haneul’s atmosphere.

“Good choices, unnie.”

Elly nodded, appreciative but tired and beginning to fray.

“I hate to ask,” Sunny said, rocking back and forth on her heels and her toes the way she always did when she was nervous, “but how much money do we have left?”

Elly exhaled roughly, blowing the hair from her eyes.

“I’ll tell you when we get into the danger zone,” she said. That was another lie. They’d been in the danger zone for about two weeks. “For now, though, I need a drink.”

Sunny perked up.

“Can we afford a drink?” Moonbyul teased, and Elly looked only ten-percent annoyed. The rest of her just appreciated Moonbyul’s undying sarcasm. It was a comforting constant in their world of unpredictably and it made things feel less impossible.

“We can afford a drink,” Elly said as she gestured to the huge, welcoming sign for her favorite bar on Geum Haneul, “but we’re all going to have to share it.”

 

* * *

 

The Sleep Inn was the cheapest motel in the city and so the decision to rent a room there practically made itself.

The girls grabbed their one, shared drink, the cheapest dinner they could find on the downtown strip and then took what they needed off the Pandora before it was towed away for repairs. Elly stared sadly over her shoulder the way she always did, staring lovingly at her ship like a mother watching her child leave for war.

“It’ll be fine,” Moonbyul said, wrapping an arm around Elly’s shoulder. “Geum Haneul has the best mechanics and engineers in the solar system.”

Elly simply nodded, doing some silent, depressing math in her head.

They had enough for the fuel, the repairs, the room and a few more days of food but if they didn’t come across their next job soon, they’d be munching on space rocks.

Noticing that Elly was too deep in thought to be of much use, Moonbyul told her and Sunny to sit in the lobby which she checked them in. While Moonbyul wheeled and dealed with the woman at the front desk, trying every lie in her arsenal to try and get a reduced rate, Elly sat in sagging armchair and wracked her brain for answers.

What would they do if they couldn’t find a job before money ran out? She hadn’t just dipped into her savings; she’d bled them dry. She was failing, both as a leader and as a professional pilot, and she was letting her team down.

In general, they did odd jobs. Most crews – ones with newer, top-of-the-line ships – had specialties. They were military contractors who went out to keep (or break) the peace, or they were scientists who sampled plants, rocks and alien life. People took to the skies with a purpose, a skillset that was set in stone.

But Elly hadn’t.

She went to flight school, graduated at the top of her class, used every dollar she had to her name to buy the Pandora and never looked back. She had the skills, the passion and the support of two great friends.

What she’d never had was a five-year plan.

And now five years had passed.

She was newly twenty-five years old, the captain of a ship that barely made it off the ground, and she was dangerously close to being stranded on Geum Haneul with no money and no prospects.

Moonbyul clapped her hands twice to pull Elly from her thoughts and when she was focused, the younger girl waved the keycard.

“Time to rest,” she said, nodding her chin towards the door. “We’re in room 805.”

As Elly was always the quietest in the group, she didn’t think the girls would notice how distressed she was. She had a hell of a poker face, a stoicism that more or less concealed all of her thoughts and feelings as long as she kept her mouth shut. She hoped, at least, that if her friends _did_ realize she was upset, they wouldn’t push her to talk about it.

They didn’t know how bad it was. Not yet.

“Motel, sweet motel,” Sunny said, pressing the keycard against the sensor outside the door. “Boy, I hope these beds are comfortable.” She threw open the door and slapped her hand on the light switch, stopping short when she got onside. “Bed,” she corrected, deadpan. “Singular. One bed. I hope the _bed_ is comfortable.”

Moonbyul sighed so loudly, the people in the next room might’ve heard her.

“That cosmo-bitch in the lobby swore there were two beds,” she said, turning on her heel with the intention of teaching that stupid liar a lesson, but Elly’s hand was on her shoulder before she could march off.

“Don’t,” she said. She pointed to the wall near the bathroom. “There’s a couch. You two duke it out over who gets what. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Sunny was already unpacking.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Two of us will share a bed and the third will take the couch. It’s fine.”

“You two share the bed then,” Elly said and when her friends protested, she raised her hand to silence them. She felt bad enough that they had to spend the night, hungry, in this shitty traveler’s motel. She wasn’t going to make them break their backs on a lumpy couch just because she was a bad leader. “I’m the captain. I’ll take the couch.”

“I’m too tired to argue with you,” Sunny said, smirking as she stripped off her jacket in favor of changing into her pajamas. “Thanks, Elly.”

Elly just nodded, tossing her pillow on the couch.

“I’m going to freshen up and then I need to look for a job,” she said. “Byul, can I use your tablet?”

It was the only working tablet they had left. Sunny had dropped hers, shattering the screen and reducing it to a sea of splinters and glass dust. Elly’s had fallen prey to some sort of all-too-common drive failure after a software update and now just sat in a drawer, taking up space.

“Of course,” Moonbyul said. “I’ll make sure it’s charged.”

As soon as the bathroom door was shut, Elly leaned against it, slid down and sat on the floor in a heap of disappointment and self-loathing. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in her arms, wondering how she got them into such a hole.

They’d always struggled, they’d always lived paycheck-to-paycheck but until now, they’d always had enough. There had been enough to fill the gas tank, enough to fill the fridge, and they scrounged and saved for upgrades and repairs. It wasn’t easy but it was always doable and Elly thought it built character. They weren’t a bunch of rich, spoiled soldiers, doctors and tech-heads on a fancy, tricked-out super-ship. They were three strong, smart, independent women who worked for a living and appreciated every dollar they earned.

Until now, Elly liked that about herself.

She forced herself off the ground and moved to the sink, keeping her head down to avoid seeing her herself in the mirror. She splashed cold water on her face and dried her skin with a towel that wasn’t half as soft as it looked, wishing she’d grabbed their own towels from the ship before the attendants took it away.

Needing a wakeup call, she dared to look her reflection in the eye, noticing idly how much older she looked those days. Her dark hair was getting too long and she wondered if Sunny would cut it for her. Sunny’s hair always looked good and she did it all herself, never having enough money to visit one of the salons and refreshers featured by most refueling stations.

Her hands gripping the edge of the counter, she made the dejected realization that she didn’t looked like Captain Elly of the Pandora – she looked like Ahn Hyojin.

She’d legally changed her name a few months before graduating flight school, much to the dismay of her father who thought she’d keep his name forever, even after she got married. Elly explained, calmly and respectfully, that she just couldn’t be Hyojin anymore. She couldn’t be the poor, introverted book worm anymore. She couldn’t be insecure and shy and unsure and meek.

To her, that’s who Hyojin was, and that’s who _she’d_ always be if she stayed Hyojin.

But she loved her father and she agreed to keep her family’s name. She was destined for greatness and as soon as she signed the papers, legally declaring to every galaxy in the ‘verse that she was Ahn Elly, she felt reborn.

When she graduated, her father had given her a gold stopwatch. It was ancient, dating back to her great-great-great-great grandfather, and had been passed down generation after generation. Part of her felt extremely guilty that he was giving it to her and not her brother but Elly was older and she’d always been a daddy’s girl.

If Elly had learned anything in her five years in space, it was that time – at least the constrictive, linear format that she’d been taught – was completely meaningless. It was a social concept created by humans who never, ever thought they’d leave the spinning rock called earth. Trillions upon trillions of miles from her home in Chicago, Illinois, Elly knew that seconds, minutes and hours meant absolutely nothing to a universe so fast and so unyielding.

But it was still her prized possession. She missed her father more than anyone else and that beautiful antique was her tangible link to him. When she was working on a solo shift, when Moonbyul and Sunny were asleep and she was sitting in the pilot’s seat, hurdling through an endless darkness dotted with diamonds, she stared at the watch. She watched seconds tick away and she thought of her father.

And she hated herself for thinking about pawning it.

Technology had come so far. Humanity had learned so much about the universe and created and invented things that excelled science by leaps and bounds. Silver and gold? It was virtually meaningless. A thousand years ago, they were precious, valuable metals used to show status and wealth. Now, they were just two of a million shiny objects that could be mined from rock and earth.

But this watch was an antique. It was in great shape. There was a huge community of space-dwellers who loved anything from the old world, loved to cast aside humanity’s incredibly achievements in space and technology and focus on the ancient gems and relics of a simpler time.

If she’d found the right person (and it would be easy with the sort of interplanetary trading networks online), they’d pay out the ass for that watch.

And she hated that she thought about it every single day.

Even now, it was in the pocket of her jeans, tempting and taunting her.

She reached down, palming it through the denim and shutting her eyes. She thought of her father, and she couldn’t decide what would hurt him more – the fact that she was considering hocking it or the fact that she was doing so poorly that she needed to.

She knew she’d been in the bathroom too long. Any longer and the girls would start to worry that something was up.

To cover her tracks, she flushed the toilet and ran the faucet for fifteen seconds. She ran her fingers through her hair, making it look like she’d actually done something to clean herself up, and then emerged from the bathroom. Sunny was already in bed, the covers pulled up to her chest, and flipping through the channels on the out-of-date television set. Moonbyul was nowhere to be found.

“Where’d Byullie go?” Elly asked, digging through her duffel bag to find something more comfortable to wear for the rest of the night.

“She got a phone call,” Sunny said, distracted.

Elly wanted to ask who’d called but lost interest when she found her pajamas. She changed quickly and settled into the lumpier-than-would-be-preferred couch. Punching Moonbyul’s super creative and secure lock-code – _1234Passowrd_ – into the tablet, she navigated to a website called Occupants Net, a job listings site that she used whenever they were strapped for cash.

She used the website’s filter to set her parameters – the ship wasn’t in good enough shape to make a super long journey so the job had to be at least relatively close to Geum Haneul, and they didn’t have the sort of weapons or defensive system needed to do a pirating job.

From there, it was trial and error.

She clicked a listing, read the details, weighed the distance and the challenges against the potential payout and either exited the page or saved it to her list to show Sunny and Moonbyul later. She did this over and over and over again, reading ad after ad until her eyes watered and her wrists were sore from holding the tablet.

Even when Moonbyul returned and shut off the lights so that she and Sunny could get some sleep, Elly kept browsing, the tablet’s bright screen stinging her eyes. Sometime after two in the morning (linear time still meant nothing to Elly but Geum Haneul was one of many planets that used Cosmos Standard Time), Elly stood up and stretched. Sunny and Moonbyul were both fast asleep, the former half-hanging off the bed and the latter snoring like a congested trucker.

She cracked her neck, her back and her knuckles before taking a spotty glass from the TV stand and getting a drink of water from the bathroom sink. For a few seconds, she just stood in the doorway, watching her sleeping friends in the flashing glow of the television. Sunny had stolen most of the blanket but Moonbyul had fallen asleep with the remote in her hands.

Moonbyul was a brilliant engineer. They’d met at a bar in Seoul, Moonbyul trying to blow off steam after final exams and Elly wanting to celebrate her first solo flight. They had the same dark, dry sense of humor, the same sharp mind, the same deeply rooted loyalty. Moonbyul was the type of friend who was with you for life and she might’ve been the only person in the universe who could effortlessly handle all the faulty pieces of both the Pandora’s engine and Elly’s personality.

Sunny was a bright, sensitive tech analysis with the biggest heart Elly had ever known. She was loud and genuine and jovial and her laugh was one of Elly’s favorite sounds. She was so skilled and so competent, the type of techie that could find out anything about anyone. Elly had taken the Pandora to a body shop shortly after she bought it, just to make sure it was safe to fly. The owner’s niece, a petite redhead with a high voice and contagious smile, offered to check her computer systems for her and the rest was history.

Elly loved them both so much. She couldn’t imagine her life without them. She always thought her favorite part of being a pilot would be the freedom but in reality, it was getting to spend every day with her two best friends.

She loved them so much and she was failing them.

She saw her father’s watch on the table, thought about it again, and then went to the bed. Sunny was so deep a sleeper that she didn’t even stir when Elly pushed her small body back onto the mattress. She pulled the blanket so that it was covering both of them, gently pried the remote from Moonbyul’s hands.

She could never sleep with the TV on.

As soon as it was off and the room was quiet and dark, Elly passed out, no longer caring about the rough upholstery or the rumbling in her stomach. Things weren’t great but for the rest of that night, they’d be okay. They were warm and safe and their ship had a full tank of gas. They were a little hungry and a little dirty and very tired but for the next eight hours, they would be just fine.

She slept hard that night. She didn’t dream. She didn’t even move until Moonbyul was crouching beside the couch, gently jostling her arm.

“Unnie, wake up,” she whispered cutely and Elly whined.

“Go away, Byul,” she mumbled.

“I’m going to go wrangle us up some breakfast,” Moonbyul said, rising to her feet. She leaned over the couch, playing with Elly’s hair.

“God, you’re so affectionate in the morning,” Elly groaned, slapping her hands away. “I had a cat like you when I was a kid.”

“What do you want for breakfast?” Moonbyul pestered, poking Elly’s arms. With a grunt, Elly forced herself up so that she was sitting. Sunny was on the bed, laying on her stomach, swinging her feet as she swiped at the tablet.

“What time is it?” Elly asked.

“Nine-thirty,” Moonbyul said. “Elly, what do you want for breakfast?”

“Seaweed soup,” Elly said. “Maybe some nice fish and a little rice.”

Moonbyul snorted as she slipped into her jacket.

“Feeling a little homesick?” she teased

“Just my taste buds,” Elly said groggily. “Where are you going exactly?”

Shrugging, Moonbyul said, “I’m just going to walk around until I find the best deal. We don’t have much to play with. I’m sure I can find enough for all three of us for under twenty bucks.”

Sunny’s resounding laugh, an upbeat squeal, was much too loud for the early hour.

“You’re not going to find that deal on Geum Haneul,” she said, grinning. “You may need to try another rock. Isn’t there a dwarf planet just north of here? They probably have some cheap Korean barbeque.”

Moonbyul retrieved the cash-card from the TV stand, a sarcastic smile ghosting her lips.

“I’m just looking for some eggs, Sunny. I’m not trying to be Berm food.”

Elly yawned.

They hadn’t run into any Berm in a while and that was a rare stroke of luck.

As far as alien species went, the Berm were easy to manage. They didn’t look anything like the aliens that old school science fiction portrayed but they were kind of creepy. Green, scaly and taller than humans, Berm could be frightening. But they were, for the most part, peaceful creatures. They were territorial and they were fiercely strong but the chances of a human being killed by a Berm were statistically very, very low.

The biggest problem had always been communication.

The Berm communicated on a frequency much too high for humans to hear – something near 100,000 hertz. For the longest time, the Berm and the space-dwellers fought tooth and nail. They fought over land, fought because they were different, fought because they were scared.

But a billionaire software tycoon named Matheos Grim came to the rescue. Not only did he invent a piece of equipment that could convert and translate the frequencies between humans and Berm but he hired a dream team of scientists, historians and linguists to get together and figure out what exactly the Berm were trying to say.

It took twenty-eight years but the Device in Extraterrestrial Communication and Translation was born and nothing was ever the same in the ‘verse. Everybody called it the DIECAT. It was a little pricey (meaning the Pandora girls didn’t have one) but they were built to last. Anyone who’d ever bought one said that it was worth every cent. If you found yourself alone on a planet inhabited by Berm, it was helpful to have a little device that could tell them you came in peace.

“If you can’t find three meals for cheap enough,” Elly said, “we’ll share two.”

Moonbyul ignored her.

“I’ll be back,” she said.

“Be safe,” Sunny reminded.

As soon as she was gone, and as soon as Sunny got distracted by a movie about a space smuggler who fell in love with a ‘verse sheriff, Elly got back on the tablet. With a fresh eyes and a clear head, she wanted to revisit the list of possible jobs she’d made the night before.

At two in the morning, she had thirty-one potential jobs on the list. Eight hours later, she narrowed it down to twelve – five transport jobs, three deliveries, three requests for specimen samples and one smuggling job that Elly _really_ didn’t want to take but paid really well.

She saved all twelve to a separate window and locked the tablet, putting it on the table to wait for Moonbyul’s return. When they sat down for breakfast, they’d discuss where to go next. Elly was in charge but big decisions were always made by the group. They would work it out together and make the best decision possible for the team, whatever that meant. They’d never, ever take a job unless all three of them were in agreement and this would be no exception.

Hell, if Sunny and Moonbyul thought that the smuggling job was the way to go, Elly would sign on.

But they had to do it together.

On the bed, Sunny laughed. She’d found something in the movie so funny that she flipped over onto her back and giggled at the ceiling. Even over the chortles, Elly could hear her stomach growling. She could see Sunny’s sweatshirt on the chair, the same purple hoodie she’d been wearing for two years. By the door, she saw Moonbyul’s sneakers, worn so badly that her toes poked through the top.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fuck everything. She was going to have to sell her father’s watch.

She would hate herself forever if she did but she’d hate herself even more if she didn’t. Any of those twelve jobs would require supplies – food, fuel, water, new clothes, possibly weapons, maybe a fucking DIECAT if they had to go someplace weird – and they just couldn’t afford it.

And Elly felt terrible.

She didn’t have a choice.

She reached for the tablet and punched in the lock-code, swallowing the lump in her throat. Though it pained her so deeply that she felt it in her teeth, she began typing the web address that would take her to the ‘Verse Trading Station website. There, she would make the post and she would sell the thing that meant the most to her in the galaxy.

And she would do it for her girls.

She’d do anything for her girls, even if it hurt.

But she’d only managed to type six letters before the door to the motel room flew open and bounced off the wall, breaking the relative quiet so abruptly that Sunny jumped off the bed. Moonbyul dove in the room, stumbled over feet and caught herself on the wall right before she lost her balance.

“Christ, Byul, what’s wrong with you?” Sunny asked, her hand over her heart. She looked Moonbyul up and down, noticed her empty hands, and frowned. “Hey, where’s the grub?”

“I have something better than grub,” she said, hurdling one of the chairs to get near the couch. “Unnie, give me the tablet.” Quickly swiping away from the trading site because she was embarrassed and didn’t want Moonbyul to see, Elly handed it over, staring back at her in confusion.

“Something the matter?” Elly asked, watching as her normally level-headed best friend typed frantically. “Byul, you’re going to break the glass.”

“I really wanted eggs,” Sunny whined, moving to get closer. “Where’s the food?”

“Unnie!” Moonbyul warned. “I love you but _hush_.”

“Moonbyul, will you please use your words?” Elly asked. “What’s up?” A few more swipes and Moonbyul forced the tablet back into the hands of their leader.

“Read.”

“Read what?”

“The government posted a listing this morning,” she said. “They displayed it one on of the scanner-boards outside of the hotel.”

“A _government_ job?” Elly questioned.

“Just _read_ it, Elly! Goddamn!”

With an annoyed huff, Elly looked down, her eyes locking onto the bold, block-lettering of the listing’s title. It wasn’t very long but it was enough to make her heart stop dead in her chest. She swallowed a few times, her mouth suddenly dry, and Sunny must’ve noticed the change in her demeanor because she asked, “Elly, what’s it say?”

“It says that a dangerous criminal named Kwon Jiyong escaped from the super-max prison on Keun Gamog,” she said slowly.

“So?”

Moonbyul’s eyes were sparkling, her lips pressed into a thin, firm line. She’d read the listing and so she already knew.

Elly read it three more times just to make sure she’d understood it correctly, just to make sure she was seeing the right words.

She looked up at her friends, her dark eyes full of something that looked a lot like hope.

“It says that they’ll pay one-hundred million dollars to anyone who can find him and bring him back.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Termite was a very small ship.

When Captain Kim Taeyeon met someone new and they asked about her ship, that was all that she could say. She loved her ship, and she was proud of it, but it was just too goddamn small.

It was so small, in fact, that the flight deck wasn’t even its own room. Like her parents’ old RV, the cockpit opened up into the kitchen, the driver’s seat a whopping six feet from the stove. In a lot of ways, it reminded Taeyeon of the camper where she’d spent her summers as a kid. The kitchenette was nearly identical. On the left was a fridge, a stove, a sink and a small section of countertop upon which everyone’s favorite coffee maker lived. On the right, was a dining booth.

Back in the RV, that table had folded down into a bed. On the Termite, no such luck.

At the other edge of the kitchen was a door that led into a cramped common room. It was where the crew spent most of their downtime. There was a couch that opened up into a bed (or at least it would have if there was enough room), a pinball machine that Hwasa had begged for, a punching bag that Amber had begged for, a television pre-loaded with all of Krystal’s favorite shows (that she didn’t have to beg for because Taeyeon was smart enough to buy it before she started whining) and a small bookshelf that was obsolete but kept Taeyeon sane.

Next, a hallway led in three directions. Turning left would take you to the engine room and from there, a hatch in the corner led downstairs to the cargo hold and depressurization chamber. Turning right took you to Krstyal’s office. Taking the corridor straight back led to the dorm that all four girls shared. Taeyeon desperately wished that the ship was big enough to host four separate bedrooms – hell, she’d settle for two bedrooms where they could pair off – but that just wasn’t her reality.

Like in the RV, bunks were built into the wall. Krystal and Hwasa had the top bunks while Amber and Taeyeon were on the bottom and a door at the back of the room led into the bathroom.

And that was it. That was the whole ship. She’d known pilot’s whose escape pods were bigger than her entire carrier. She was only 5’2 but she was constantly banging her head, knees and elbows on walls, counters and the bottom of Hwasa’s bunk. She spent a lot of time waiting for the bathroom, or trying to shimmy around the punching bag that tended to block the common room door when not in use.

It didn’t always bother her. At the beginning of her career, the small ship had been by design. Taeyeon and her crew were trackers. They found things – or people – that no one else could. Sometimes it was stolen goods, sometimes it was missing pilots, sometimes it was pieces of ships or satellites that had broken off and gotten lodged somewhere.

If you needed it found, the ladies of the Termite could track it down and in order to quickly and efficiently bounce around from solar system to solar system, they needed a ship that was small, fast and cost effective. The Termite was powered by a mid-level antimatter reactor and used back-up generators and a sizable rocket fuel reserve in case their matter-intake dropped in the air.

The Termite served its purpose. It was fast and it wasn’t wildly expensive to maintain. It always got them from point A to point B (and sometimes points, C, D and E if things got weird while they were exploring a galaxy) and it rarely gave them any problems.

But it was a shoebox. It was too small to house four active women and after three years together, everyone was feeling a claustrophobic case of cabin fever.

In the pilot’s seat, Taeyeon stretched as best she could. Behind her, in the kitchenette, she heard the distinct sound of Hwasa mixing herself a drink, the spoon clinking off the tall glass before she dropped it into the sink. In another few seconds, she took the seat beside Taeyeon, smiling.

Muffled commotion sounded from the common room – a thud and maybe a groan – and Taeyeon would’ve looked over her shoulder to investigate if she hadn’t gotten so used to it.

“What the fuck are they doing back there that’s making that much noise?” she snapped. “Are they fucking or are they fighting?”

Hwasa smirked.

“With Krystal and Amber, it’s basically the same thing,” she said. Taeyeon glared into the darkness, irritated. The ship hadn’t seemed so small back when Amber and Krystal were just colleagues but now that her engineer and tech analyst couldn’t go fifteen minutes without either screaming in each other’s faces or having sex on the couch, it felt like the walls were closing in.

Out of the corner of her eye, Taeyeon caught a glimpse of the orange, fizzy liquid in Hwasa’s glass, then the younger girl downed it all in one shot, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Want some?” Hwasa asked, placing her glass on the dashboard. “There’s still a few packets left.”

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” Taeyeon said, referring to the ever-popular LifeForce energy drink that burned her tongue and throat every time she’d ever tried it. “It’s tastes like battery acid.”

“Battery acid that keeps me awake on those twenty-four hour shifts, unnie,” Hwasa said, settling into her seat. LifeForce was widely regarded in the ‘verse as being one of the most powerful energy-replacers, stronger than coffee and longer-lasting than any of the other brands. It was packed with vitamins B, C and D, all of which were important for people who spent their lives inside a spaceship, and a whole lot of caffeine and B-12. It was powdered, brightly colored and fizzled when it was added to water.

And it really did taste like battery acid.

“I don’t like orange,” Taeyeon said.

“We also have mango and grape,” Hwasa teased. Something beeped onscreen and Taeyeon leaned forward to make sure it wasn’t anything dangerous or journey-altering. “What is it?”

“Meteor shower,” Taeyeon said.

“Close by?”

Taeyeon shook her head.

“Out west. We won’t pass through it but I had Krystal set it to alert me of anything in a ten-lightyear radius. I hate surprises.”

Hwasa snorted and said, “I’ve noticed.”

Because she wanted to pout and feel sorry for herself, Taeyeon tried to hide her smile, but with Hwasa staring at her like she knew all her secrets and thought they were stupid, she just couldn’t.

“Shut up,” she said. Hwasa reached across the tiny cockpit and slapped Taeyeon’s thigh, her laugh doing wonders to drown out the sounds of Krystal and Amber doing whatever it was they were doing in the other room. “Remind me why I fly with you.”

“Because you love me,” Hwasa said casually, leaning back in her chair like she was ready for a nap. “And because I’m the best damn co-pilot this side of Geum Haneul.”

Both were true. Because so many of their jobs required such long journeys, there was no way Taeyeon could’ve survived without a co-pilot. She met Hwasa at a trade show and bonded when they debated nuclear power versus antimatter. Hwasa had all the skills of a captain but without the ego. She was too mellow and too selfless to need or want the glory that came from calling the shots and she was all too happy to play the part of the middle-reliever.

She was Taeyeon’s right-hand and, more importantly, her emotional support. Taeyeon was awkward, quiet, introverted. She had a hard time talking to people, even if it was just polite chitchat while she waited at a refueling station. She _really_ had trouble opening up, talking about her thoughts and emotions, communicating what she needed or what she was feeling. Connecting with other people had always been hard for her and her social problems were a cross she’d had to bear all her life.

Hurdling through space in a tin can of a ship for weeks (and even months) on end was hard on the heart and harder on the psyche. If Taeyeon didn’t have her team, if she didn’t have Hwasa sitting next to her, if she was truly isolated, she might’ve launched herself from the escape hatch, sans-pod, by now.

But she wasn’t alone. She had Hwasa who was intense and focused and always knew when Taeyeon needed to talk. Hwasa was strong-willed, a critical thinker who could find a solution to virtually any problem. She had Amber who was loud and light-hearted and fiercely loyal. Amber was so protective of the other girls that it sometime bordered on annoying but Taeyeon was always amazed by just how big her capacity for love truly was. She had Krystal who was, by all accounts, a total brat but a brat who was brilliant and dedicated and so good with computers that Taeyeon thought she might actually be a cyborg.

Taeyeon knew that she was much happier sharing a too-small ship with three people she loved than she would’ve been if she was all alone and living comfortably, even if her sixteen-year-old self would slap anyone who’d ever suggested such a thing. It was cramped and it was a burden but her friends saved her from herself and that was worth all the solo bedrooms in the world.

At least that’s what she was telling herself those days.

“Unnie?” Hwasa prompted after minutes had passed in silence.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?” Taeyeon turned her head find Hwasa playing with the ends of her blonde hair. She’d cut it to her shoulders recently, the result of a bad breakup, and Taeyeon liked it. It made Hwasa look older. She was already youngest on the ship and her baby face didn’t help. She was, after all, the most mature person on-board. It was nice to see her starting to age. Taeyeon felt like Hwasa was starting to catch up with her.

“Always,” she said.

“Do you think we made the right call deciding not to go after Jiyong?” she asked, the elephant in the room made even larger by the fact that the room was so damn tiny. “A hundred-million is a lot of money. And if anyone could find him, it’s us.”

Taeyeon nodded slowly while her friend spoke. It had been a group decision, something they’d discussed in the common room the day the government posted the listing. It had been on her mind for the last few shifts, nagging at her like a bug in her brain. But Taeyeon had good instincts and she trusted herself. Her gut said it was the wrong choice to go after that bounty and so she’d shared that with the rest of the ship.

In the end, they trusted her instincts, too.

“It _is_ a lot of money,” Taeyeon said, “but it’s not guaranteed money. Every freelance pilot in the universe is going to be looking for Jiyong. As talented as we are, I just don’t think we’ll be the one to find him. And then we’ll have wasted, days, weeks or even _months_ chasing after a ghost and losing money. And think of it this way. With everyone busy on this wild goose chase, there will be open positions everywhere. We will be drowning in work and making serious cash. If we’re the only trackers on Occupants Net, we can set our own wages.”

Taeyeon could tell that Hwasa was thinking very deeply, considering every word she’d said. She was very expressive and the crease in her forehead always meant that the cogs were turning.

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. I think I was just blinded by that number.” She folded her hands over her stomach and exhaled, blowing her bangs out of her face. “A hundred-million bucks, unnie. Imagine what we could do with that kind of money.”

From behind them, it sounded like something hit the wall. Krystal yelled something. Amber _giggled_.

Taeyeon rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I’m imagining,” she said. “But a few months of solid, steady work with a pay increase because everyone else is on a galaxy-wide scavenger hunt?” She shook her head. “Kid, we’ll have a bigger ship before we know it.”

“Aren’t your eyes tired from all that rolling?”

“My eyes are tired from being open for eighteen hours,” Taeyeon countered.

“Take a nap,” Hwasa said and before Taeyeon could argue, she added, “Look, we’re on auto-pilot right now and we will be for quite a bit longer. I can more than handle it. If anything big and scary pops up, I’ll blast it with a missile.”

Taeyeon shrugged and gestured to the common room.

“I don’t want to go back to the dorms and walk through whatever’s happening in there.”

“You’re making excuses,” Hwasa said. “I’ve seen you sleep in that chair dozens of time. You sleep and I’ll man the controls. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re burnt out. I’ll wake you if anything good happens.”

Taeyeon considered protesting but it would’ve been fruitless. Hwasa was always a stubborn person but when it came to getting Taeyeon to take care of herself, she bent about as much as a steel pole. She knew that Taeyeon needed to be pushed, otherwise she’d take on the whole galaxy by herself with an empty stomach and blurry, sleep-deprived eyes.

“Wake me if _anything_ happens,” she said and Hwasa replied with a mock salute.

“Aye aye, captain.”

Sighing, Taeyeon reclined her seat and shut her eyes, intending to play her usual count-backwards-from-one-hundred game until she wound down enough to truly relax.

She only made it to ninety-one before she fell asleep.

Peacefully, she dreamt of her friend Hani, a musician back on earth. Hani toured the country in a too-small van, traveling from state to state with her friends and living her dream. It wasn’t easy but it was her path and it made her happy.

Taeyeon felt that she did the same thing, only millions of miles away.

She hadn’t seen Hani in over three years but she still streamed videos of her band’s performances online, smiling fondly (and maybe a little sadly) to see her friend thriving. For a split second, it made her homesick but even in her dreams, that nostalgia wore off quickly.

Taeyeon’s destiny had always been too big to be contained to just one planet.

Frankly, it was beginning to seem too big for the Termite, too.

She had no idea how long she’d slept before Hwasa shoved her awake. She mumbled something, shrugging off Hwasa’s touch, but then she heard the chiming tone from the dashboard and opened her eyes. She knew every single sound made by every single appliance and electronic feature onboard from the beeping of the microwave to the alarms that sounded when something got too close to the ship. But this sound didn’t belong to anything in the kitchen, nor was it signaling any apparent doom.

The Termite was receiving a video call.

“What the fuck?” Taeyeon mumbled sleepily, slapping her hand down against the panel so that her seat would return to its most upright position. “Who the fuck knows our communication-ID?”

“No one,” Hwasa said. She pressed a green button on dashboard and a sleek, flat screen monitor slid up from behind the paneling. The monitor displayed, in bright, block lettering, that the call was coming in from an unknown CID and she and Taeyeon exchanged nervous glances. They tended to change their communication-IDs – a unique but untraceable string of numbers, letters and symbols used to link ships’ communication systems – frequently to avoid situations like this. Video calls were usually saved for personal affairs. They had a whole separate channel for business inquiries. Whatever this was, it was weird. “What do we do?”

Taeyeon shrugged, reaching forward to swipe at the touch-screen interface to the right of her main control system.

“Smile for the camera, I guess.”

Another click and the screen came alive. A man neither had ever seen before sat comfortably in what looked like a computer chair. His hair was auburn and wavy, stopping just at his chin. His eyes were dark and narrow, his nose straight. Something about him, perhaps the way he wore virtually no expression of any kind, seemed very sinister. He wore a strange collared shirt, striped with yellow and black, and a necklace with a thick chain.

Taeyeon’s famous instincts were screaming. Something was off about this guy.

“Hello,” he said coolly. The picture cut off at his chest but he raised his arms and folded his hands on whatever surface (Taeyeon thought it might be a desk) he was using. “Is this the right Termite ship?”

“That depends who’s asking,” Taeyeon said.

The man’s lips twisted into something that almost resembled a smile.

“I’m a friend,” he said.

“Our friends don’t make unwelcome video calls,” Hwasa said. “How did you get our CID?”

“Would you believe me if I said I got it from a friend?” he said almost teasingly and Taeyeon’s forehead creased. When she and Hwasa simply stared back at the man, blank and unimpressed, he shifted in his seat. It wasn’t a nervous or uncomfortable gesture. If anything, he seemed like he was trying to find a better angle for his camera. “Let’s start over,” he said, clapping his hands together. “My name is Kim Heechul. I am friends with Choi Minho. He says you do good work.”

Taeyeon fought the very strong urge to roll her eyes. Fucking Minho. He was sweet as sugar but he was clueless. He _would_ give their CID out to some shady cat in a neon button-up. He probably thought he was doing them a favor, being a good guy and drumming up business for his favorite freelancers. But Taeyeon was already sure that things would go very differently.

“Maybe we do,” she said. “But what does that have to do with you, Kim Heechul?”

His smile was more genuine now but it didn’t make him seem any less insidious.

“Have you lovely ladies heard about the bounty that’s currently on the head of a Mr. Kwon Jiyong?” he asked, singsongy. “The escaped convict who the government is trying so hard to find?”

“We have,” Taeyeon said.

“And do you intend to take part in this galaxy-wide Easter egg hunt?”

“What’s it to you, guy?” Hwasa snapped. “Stop beating around the bush. What’s up?”

Heechul cocked an eyebrow.

“You must be Hwasa,” he said fondly. “Minho said you were feisty.” Hwasa’s fists balled at her sides and Heechul held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll get straight to the point. We’re all busy people.” He clicked his tongue. “I need your help to find Mr. Kwon.”

“So you can get the reward money?” Hwasa snorted. “No thanks.”

“I have no intention of turning Mr. Kwon over to the government, ma’am,” Heechul said, sitting up straighter in his chair. “He and I have some unfinished business and I desperately need him here with me on Bujeonghan. We have some loose ends to tie up and that can’t happen if the government throws him back in prison.”

Taeyeon’s face was twisted in confusion, a grimace that masked her worry. Something still felt off about this guy and the alarms in her head were blaring.

“You want us to commit treason for you,” Taeyeon said, almost laughing. The Cosmos – the official, brutal government that ruled in the ‘verse – was not a group of people she especially wanted to piss off. By nature, she was a rule-follower, something that guaranteed she’d never get into very much trouble with Cosmos sheriffs, but she knew plenty of people who’d had ruthless run-ins with the people who were supposed to keep peace in the universe. “Just so you can reunite with this guy? And we’re just supposed to do your bidding because Minho sent you?”

“Your crew is known for being able to find anything,” he continued. “I’ve heard stories. I’ve heard Minho’s accounts of the things you’ve done, of the things you’ve found. If anyone can track him down, it’s you girls. I came to you because you’re the very best. I have the utmost faith that you’ll be able to find him and find him _quickly_. With so many people tracking his scent, time is of the essence.” He looked to Taeyeon. “As a captain, I’m sure you understand that.” Taeyeon glanced at Hwasa. She was playing it cool, her face giving nothing away, but her hands were still clenched into tight fists. “I need your crew to find Jiyong and bring him to me before someone else finds him and turns him in to the Cosmos.”

“And what exactly do we get out it?” Taeyeon asked. “Besides the risk of being caught betraying the Cosmos and getting sent to a work camp?”

Heechul’s eyes shined with something menacing as his thin lips warped back into that twisted smile. Running a hand through his hair, he said, “I thought you’d never ask, Taeyeon.” Not liking way her name sounded on his tongue, Taeyeon frowned. “If you bring me Kwon Jiyong, relatively unharmed, before anyone else gets to him, I’ll pay you. Handsomely.”

“Handsomely?” Hwasa rolled her eyes. “What could you possibly–?”

“I’ll double the government’s bounty,” he said and Taeyeon felt like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, the room and possibly the whole ship. But surely something would start beeping if they were out of oxygen, right?

Her ears suddenly ringing, she asked, “Did you just say–?”

“Two-hundred million dollars,” he interrupted, “if you can find him.” He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding a good portion of his obnoxious shirt from view. “But I need your answer now. If you can’t do it, I need to initiate a video call with the _second_ best trackers in the ‘verse.”

Her bottom lip between her teeth, Taeyeon looked back at Hwasa. The younger girl wore a very serious but very easy-to-read expression that told Taeyeon everything she needed to know – this decision was entirely up to her. Hwasa would support her either way. Krystal and Amber, wherever they were and whatever they were doing, would support her either way.

After giving them all such a long-winded spiel about why it was so much wiser to step back and let the rest of the universe fight it out, it seemed wildly hypocritical to take Heechul’s deal.

But two-hundred million dollars? That didn’t just buy a bigger, better ship. That bought an engine upgrade. That bought new, improved anti-matter technology that would let them go farther faster. That bought the kind of financial security that her crew deserved. That bought flight deck doors and solo bedrooms and an actual onboard gym.

That kind of money was life-changing.

And, after all, they _were_ the best freelance trackers in the game. If anyone could find Jiyong, it was them. Taeyeon had no doubt about that.

She’d wanted to be bigger, right? She’d wanted her legacy to be known, wanted to fulfill her destiny, whatever that was. Maybe this creepy redhead in the ugly shirt was offering Taeyeon’s place in history to her on a silver platter.

Maybe this was her chance.

She made an executive decision.

Taeyeon looked to Hwasa one last time. Her co-pilot gave her a look like she’d heard every single thought and then offered up the smallest nod of confirmation.

“Okay,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek and watching how Heechul’s face brightened with legitimate joy. “We’ll find him for you. And when we do, when we deliver Jiyong to you, unharmed, you’ll pay up.”

Heechul clapped again.

“Excellent news, Taeyeon. I think that–”

“You’ll pay us two-and-a-half million,” she said sternly. When he blinked in response, she shrugged. “Call it the cost of doing business. A fee that comes with unsolicited video calls.”

A few seconds passed and then Kim Heechul laughed out loud, a booming chuckle that was just as disturbing as the rest of him.

“Taeyeon,” he said, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Seo Hyerin woke up when she felt the bed dip.

The room was cold (it was always cold onboard since Yuri had direct access to the thermostat) but the sudden addition of a second warm body made the bed feel a lot hotter.

“You’ve been asleep for like two shifts,” Solji whispered against her neck, her arms around her waist and pulling Hyerin’s body closer. “I think it’s time you get up and be a contributing member of the team.”

“No one is sick or injured,” Hyerin mumbled. She didn’t open her eyes but she covered Solji’s hands with her own, breathing deeply. Her life was hectic but these moments were truly peaceful. Everything about Solji, from her touch to her perfume to her sarcasm, was beautiful and familiar and Hyerin craved it, even when Solji was waking her up from a wonderfully deep sleep. “I was awake for two straight shifts before this. Let me rest.”

“Why were you awake so long?”

“Because I’m an incredibly hard worker,” Hyerin said, lighting scratching her nails up and down Solji’s arms. “And because I like to learn new skills while we’re flying to Planet Nowhere.”

“Not Planet Nowhere, silly girl,” Solji said. She placed a kiss just under Hyerin’s ear and added, “Cheoeum, the dwarf planet. There’s a credible lead that Jiyong and his friends used to hide out there when the heat was on. Don’t you remember what Yuri said?”

“I don’t always listen when Yuri speaks,” Hyerin said. “Is your shift over?”

“Sooyoung is a good enough co-pilot,” Solji shrugged. “And we basically fly in a straight line until we hit Cheoeum. She can handle it. I was up so long, I was starting to see spots.”

Hyerin smirked.

“Spotty vision? Not something you want in a captain. Want me to give you an eye exam?”

Solji gave Hyerin a tight squeeze, her chin coming to rest on her shoulder.

“If we’re going to play doctor,” Solji said, “I’m really not interested in the vision test. There are other parts much more worthy of an exam, I’m sure.”

“You’re very dirty,” Hyerin said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Solji said. “But, more to the point, we’ll be on Cheoeum soon and then, my darling, we are one step closer to bagging Kwon Jiyong and throwing him back to the Cosmos.”

“And rolling in money,” Hyerin reminded as if Solji could ever forget.

The truth was that they didn’t really need the money. The Unity was a big, strong ship driven by a powerful, top-of-the-line anti-matter converter. Beyond that, Solji had spent the last seven years making it as comfortable and luxurious as she could possibly afford. Each member of the crew had their own bedroom. They had a full gym, a home theater, a game room, even a UV spa.

Solji’s father, a dominant music mogul back in Seoul, had taught her at a very young age that taking care of your employees was the best investment a boss could ever make. If people felt valued and appreciated, they’d be loyal forever. What was a ping-pong table and a hot tub if it meant that her girls would be with her, working hard, for years and years to come?

Solji had grown up with money but her father wanted her to work hard and learn the value of a dollar. For that reason, he only paid a portion of her flight school tuition. The rest was up to her. She’d wanted to be a singer until 11th grade when she realized she wanted to fly and so she put herself through school singing at bars and in coffee shops. When that wasn’t quite paying all the bills, she waitressed and wrote book reports for teenagers who couldn’t make the grade on their own.

She didn’t just graduate with honors – she graduated with a profound sense of pride and her father’s undying respect. And to show his admiration for his daughter, he bought her a massive spaceship that she named the Unity.

From there, it was about deciding what kind of pilot she wanted to be. In the end, she teamed up with a close friend, a math and science prodigy named Choi Sooyoung who’d graduated from college _and_ flight school before she’d turned twenty-one. Sooyoung wanted to explore the galaxy. She wanted to take samples of rocks and plants. She wanted to study Berm colonies. She wanted to learn everything there was to know about the universe and contribute to the eternal debate about what else was out there.

Solji did, too.

They were roommates their junior and senior years and when Solji’s father handed her the keys to the Unity, Sooyoung was her first call.

Once they formulated a real plan, they’d take to the skies. They’d explore every corner of the universe, taking samples, pictures and measurements and reporting their findings to the Board of Universe Studies.

They just needed a crew.

It took about six months to find everyone they needed.

Sooyoung knew Kwon Yuri from college, a tech wizard who’d contribute her skills to just about any ship that was willing to house and feed her. She was a little weird but she was very talented and she didn’t even balk when she encountered the Unity’s massive tech system. If anything, she seemed eager to sink her teeth into it, insisting that her personal flare (in the form of custom coding) would have the computers running more efficiently than ever.

Solji posted a listing for an engineer on Occupants Net.

When people inquired and asked for the specs, they were intimidated and off put by the size and power of the Unity, but a young lady named Kim Solar asked if she could swing by and meet the ship. Solji hired her seventeen minutes after meeting her. As an added bonus, Solar recommended her friend Wheein, a mechanic and handyman who was making a living doing odd-job repairs on ships, satellites and space stations.

After a brief team meeting, when all five girls realized that none of them could cook for shit and they’d soon be living off turkey jerky and freeze-dried potatoes, Solji went back on Occupants Net and looked for a chef. Four interviews later, she found Im Yoona, the head chef at a Geum Haneul hotel who wanted a change of scenery. (Gold skies, as it turned out, weren’t for everyone.)

They were all set to take off on their first official job, a mission to travel to an exoplanet scientists were calling Gyeonbon to take samples of mineral-rich rocks for Cosmos researchers, when Solji met Seo Hyerin.

She’d stopped at a clinic on Geum Haneul to stock up on basic medical supplies before they launched and her heart stopped dead in her chest when her eyes fell upon the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. She was a small brunette with pink scrubs and a sweet smile and Solji spent the next four hours in the clinic’s lobby, waiting with baited breath for the doctor to return. She looked crazy, jostling her legs and tapping on the armrests while she waited, but Solji couldn’t bring herself to leave without at least talking to the woman.

When the doctor _did_ finally come back, she was on her way out the door. Solji acted purely on instinct and emotion, asking her to coffee before she even asked her name. Hyerin just laughed, genuinely flattered and charmed by Solji’s confidence.

“I’ve had a very long day,” she’d said, “and I’d love to get coffee with a pretty girl.”

Blushing furiously and smiling like an idiot, Solji offered Hyerin her arm and the rest was history.

She found out quickly that Hyerin was a surgeon who was volunteering at the clinic to get some experience on her resume. She cycled through three different hospitals trying to make enough money to pay off her student loans and was considering getting a second job to help make ends meet.

Solji hadn’t known that the Unity needed an on-ship doctor until that very moment.

The government was giving the Unity a grant to help fund the trip to Gyeonbon and Solji couldn’t think of a better way to spend the extra money than to put Hyerin on the payroll.

They started dating a month and a half later.

Solji’s father wasn’t remotely surprised to hear that she was marrying the doctor but he did offer his daughter some advice before the wedding.

“Never let your relationship interfere with work,” he told her as he straightened his tie in the mirror. “And never, ever let your work interfere with your relationship.”

So far, they never had. It was a delicate balance but Hyerin respected Solji’s position on the ship and the authority that came with it. She was the captain. She was in charge. What she said was law. But Solji valued Hyerin’s opinion and craved her validation and approval. She put on a brave face for the rest of the crew but behind closed doors, she never made any decision, big or small, without talking to her wife first.

And Hyerin was Solji’s salvation. Solji loved her job. She loved flying, she loved math, she loved science, she loved learning, she loved being a leader. But every single moment was stressful. It was a constant dance, a battle, and Solji always felt like she was walking a high wire.

In space, every decision could mean life or death.

But she had Hyerin. Hyerin whose smile lit up Solji’s world more than any star ever could. Hyerin whose laugh broke through the all the static and all the noise of a busy spaceship and reminded Solji that life was beautiful. Hyerin whose touch made Solji feel like she was born again, buzzing with heat and electricity. Hyerin who didn’t even need to _speak_ to get her point across. All she had to do was look Solji in the eye and Solji felt it – the love, the respect, the dedication, the devotion.

In seven years, Solji had seen a countless number of stars, planets, solar systems and galaxies but she loved Seo Hyerin more than every single one of them.

“What do the kids want to buy with the reward money today?” Hyerin asked, her sleepy voice dragging Solji out of her own thoughts. Somewhere along the way, Solji and Hyerin had started referring to the rest of the crew as their kids. The other girls pretended to hate it but in reality, it didn’t bother anyone. If anything, it made them feel like even tighter a family. “Last I heard, Yoona wanted a cupcake-maker.”

“Sooyoung wants heated floors,” Solji said.

“Such a diva,” Hyerin scolded dramatically. “She’s so spoiled.”

“Solar and Yuri want a 3D gaming system. That virtual reality thing they always play with at the arcade on Geum Haneul. Frankly, I think they’ll hurt themselves. Any idea what Wheein wants?”

Hyerin hummed thoughtfully, remembering a conversation she’d had with the mechanic.

“New tools,” she said. “She’s very low maintenance.”

Solji snorted.

“Right now, she’s my favorite.”

Hyerin feigned an offended gasp. She pulled one of her arms free from Solji’s grasp and reached back, her hand coming to grab roughly at Solji’s thigh. Her hand met bare skin and that meant that Solji was wearing the tiny pink shorts that drove Hyerin crazy. She ran her nails farther up her leg until Solji gasped.

“ _I’m_ your favorite,” she corrected.

“Forever and always,” Solji whispered.

“I’m actually glad you woke me,” Hyerin continued, her fingertips tracing smooth shapes on Solji’s skin. “I’ve been putting off doing inventory for days. Now seems like the perfect time to start counting syringes and gauze pads.”

She shifted slightly so that she could push herself up but Solji tightened her grip.

“You waited all week,” Solji said. “What’s another hour?”

Hyerin laughed lowly, rolling onto her side so that she was facing Solji. Even after spending a fourteen-hour shift in the pilot’s seat, she was stunning.

“So that’s how it is?” she teased, placing a kiss to her wife’s forehead. Grinning, Hyerin pushed herself back up, moving so that she could straddle Solji’s hips. Tucking loose strands of red hair behind Solji’s ear, she said, “I guess I can’t say no to the captain, huh?”

Solji chewed the inside of her cheek.

“You could try,” she said, “but there may be some sort of punishment involved.”

“Punishment?” Hyerin countered pensively. She crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers tugging the edge of her sleep shirt so that she could pull it off over her head and toss it to the floor. She didn’t miss the way Solji licked her lips in response, her hands resting comfortably on Hyerin’s hips. “I think I like the way that sounds.”

Solji felt dazed, the most glorious kind of lightheaded, and she wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep or the gorgeous girl in her bed. Of all the incredible things she’d seen, Hyerin truly was her favorite. Novas and nebulas were cool and all but Solji could stare at Hyerin forever and never get bored. And now, looking up at her soul mate, soft, sleepy, half-naked and staring back at her with love in her eyes, she couldn’t remember why she ever, ever left their bed.

“Lucky me,” Solji cooed, her hands snaking up Hyerin’s ribs. “How did I get a girl like you?”

Hyerin just smiled, leaning down so that her chest was against Solji’s and she could press a kiss to her wife’s lips. Her laugh was low, suggestive, and it drove waves of heat through Solji’s whole body.

“It’s one of the perks,” she said, her fingers hooking into the waistband of Solji’s shorts, “of being the captain.”

 

* * *

 

It was a bit of a trek from the dorms to the infirmary but Hyerin enjoyed the walk.

In a lot of ways, she felt like Solji’s second pair of eyes. She spent a lot of time walking around the ship, half for exercise and half because she liked to know what was going on. Everyone else onboard utilized the ship’s gym but Hyerin, never a fan of exercise machines, greatly preferred just taking laps around the Unity.

Fortunately, she had a lot of downtime. Serious injuries were incredibly rare and most of her job was simple patch-up stuff. She took temperatures, distributed over-the-counter medication, even gave some stitches if the situation called for it. Luckily for everyone, she had never had to perform surgery.

They had a fully-stocked (however crude) operating room onboard but while Hyerin was confident in her abilities, she didn’t feel comfortable cutting someone open while they were in the air. She needed a surgical team, a safety net in the form of additional help and resources, and a whole lot more room, but a small part of her took great comfort in knowing that the OR was there if they needed it.

If Yuri’s appendix burst or Solar had a blood clot, she could go in and fix them up without having to waste precious time finding a planet with a functioning hospital.

But that slight comfort paled in comparison to the relief she felt that she’d never had to operate on the Unity members and the knowledge that she probably wouldn’t have to in the future.

Approaching the first corridor that would eventually lead her to the infirmary, Hyerin’s hand hovered over the button on the wall. For reasons she didn’t really understand, each hallway was sealed with a pair of double doors, each made of Plexiglas and framed in bright red. Most of the ship’s fixtures, in fact, were the same shade of crimson, making everything seem very uniform. Something about the bold red accents against the pristine white of the walls and floors gave the halls a very clean, professional, almost clinical feel.

She pressed the button, the doors slid open with a soft _whoosh_ of air and Hyerin detected the distinct, albeit faint, smell of bleach. Wheein must’ve been cleaning again.

Solji could tolerate a lot of things but a dirty ship had never been one of them. As it was, the crew was pretty tidy. Yuri was the messiest and even she’d been known to push a mop around the halls every now and again. Though Solji had told her on several thousand occasions that it wasn’t part of her job description, Hyerin could be found cleaning the halls, bathrooms and common room when she had time to kill.

The Unity had the space and accommodations to host a lot more than just seven people and Hyerin wondered idly how much messier the ship would be if they were at full capacity.

Her focus was broken when she passed the gym, her eyes moving to look through the big, glass windows that led inside. The floor mats were a dingy grey and one wall was lined with mirrors, reminding Hyerin of the dance studio at her high school. There were three stationary bikes, a couple yoga mats, an upright punching bag, two treadmills and a handful of various exercise machines that Hyerin couldn’t begin to identify.

For added pleasure, Solji had fitted a small flat-screen TV in the corner so that the girls could watch movies or catch up on the news while they worked out. More than once, Hyerin had found her wife spending one of her down-shifts running tirelessly on the treadmill while she caught up on her favorite crime dramas.

At first glance, the gym looked empty but as she got closer, Hyerin saw the Unity’s in-house flirts occupying two of the bikes. If Hyerin didn’t know any better, she might’ve thought that Yoona was actually working out. Her fingers were wrapped around the handlebars and she smiled as she pedaled but when Hyerin looked closer, she saw that Yuri was beside her, giggling as she poked at Yoona’s ribs and tugged at the bottom of her tank top.

It was the worst kept secret in the galaxy that Yuri and Yoona had been sleeping together for the last six months but Solji insisted that everyone feign ignorance on the subject. It was hard to pretend not to notice the way they snuck away during shifts, the way they were always whispering and the way Yuri’s hands were always all over some part of Yoona’s body, but everyone onboard just did what Solji asked, politely looking away and never commenting on it directly.

Because Solji wasn’t around to scold her and because she was feeling a little cocky, Hyerin knocked on the glass, laughing at the way the girls jumped apart. She gave them both a cheerful wave and though Yuri ducked behind the bike, pretending that she’d been tying her shoe, Yoona owned up to it, her cheeks pink as she waved back.

With seven very unique women on the ship, there were several deep, distinctive dynamics but Yoona and Yuri’s was one Hyerin kept an eye on. As far as she knew, they were just friends with benefits but she’d been in enough social circles to know that things were bound to get complicated. It was inevitable that one of them would catch feelings for the other and things would get messy.

Hyerin selfishly hoped that it would happen _after_ they caught Jiyong. Solji really wanted this win and Hyerin didn’t want anything to get in the way of that.

She passed by the entertainment room, the galley and the UV lounge before reaching the infirmary and Hyerin smiled contently as the pushed the button that opened the door that bore her name.

The infirmary was spotless, state-of-the-art and it felt like home.

Hyerin’s things were all where she’d left them two shifts before – her laptop open on her desk, her work tablet charging near the wall, the SmartDummy surgery simulator powered down on the operating table.

The SmartDummy system had changed her life. At first, it was just a realistic, life-sized training dummy with lifelike skin and a fragile skeleton that could be set and reset to practice sutures, incisions and setting bones. She’d had access to one during med school and it had improved her skills tremendously. From there, Hyerin purchased the virtual simulation goggles, the wireless tools and the software that came preloaded with thousands of surgeries.

She spent hours locked away in the infirmary, goggles on, being talked through simulations of procedure after procedure, honing and sharpening her skills while expanding her abilities by leaps and bounds. The tools were so sensitive and the software was so accurate that the surgeries she performed on the SmartDummy were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

Even as a kid, Hyerin had loved to learn. She knew with absolute certainty that the only reason she was on the Unity was because Solji had fallen for her the first night that they’d met. Sure, it was incredibly helpful to have a doctor onboard but Hyerin wasn’t needed the way the other girls were. Because she cared for a crew of strong, healthy women, she had a lot of free time.

Honestly, it was a dream come true. She got to travel the universe with the love of her life and five girls that she absolutely adored. She had a beautifully-equipped infirmary and operating room at her disposal and all the time and resources in the world to help her become a better doctor.

All in all, it was kind of a beautiful life.

Hyerin unplugged her tablet and placed it on the desk, sinking into her chair with a sigh and sliding herself over to the SmartDummy that was beckoning to her.

“Sorry, Terry,” she said, patting the mannequin’s arm. One of her favorite professors had mentioned in passing that naming your dummy helped you form a bond and, therefore, helped you improve your skills and Hyerin had taken it to heart. “I need to tally up the pills and tissue boxes but after that, I’m all yours.” Remembering that she actually needed her tablet to do inventory, she pushed herself away from the gurney and wheeled herself back to her desk. “Maybe I’ll take out your pancreas. Or how about a nice colon resection, hmm? That’d be fun.”

Inventory rarely took more than two hours. Hyerin counted, measured and tallied then compared what she had in stock now to what she’d had the month before. They were doing pretty well on supplies, though they were running low on saline, penicillin and bulb syringes. In a perfect world, Hyerin wanted a new EKG machine but those came with hefty price tags and an upgrade was definitely not necessity. If she asked Solji for one, she’d get it but she didn’t want to do that. Maybe if they found Jiyong, Hyerin would splurge for one with her part of the reward money.

 _When_ , she reminded herself chidingly. _When_ they found Jiyong, not _if_.

If Solji was confident that they were going to find him, so was Hyerin.

Hyerin was up to her eyeballs in IV tubing when Wheein entered the infirmary, knocking on the doorframe with her foot.

“Hey, Doc,” she said and Hyerin looked over her shoulder to see the ship’s handywoman clutching her left hand against her body. The front of her grey t-shirt was soaked with dark red. “Mind patching me up so I can get back to work?”

“Jesus space-cruising Christ, Wheein,” Hyerin said, dropping all of the tubing back into whatever bin was closest. “What did you do now?” She gestured to the exam table against the wall and Wheein didn’t hesitate to make the short walk and take a seat.

“I was fixing the furnace,” she said casually, shrugging. When Hyerin reached for her, Wheein moved her hand, and blood dripped onto her pants. “Got a little overzealous with a screwdriver.”

The wound wasn’t terrible serious, just a jagged gash along the side of her left palm. It wouldn’t require any stitches, just a butterfly bandage or two. Of everyone onboard, Wheein was Hyerin’s most frequent flier. The girl was a very skilled, very resourceful repairwoman but she sure was clumsy.

“Scale of one to ten,” Hyerin said, sliding her chair over to the case where she kept alcohol wipes and gauze, “how bad does it hurt?”

“Barely a four,” Wheein said. “Remember when I burned my arm on the engine last year? _That_ was, like, a nine. This was nothing. I wouldn’t have even come in but it wouldn’t stop bleeding and I was making a mess. You know how Solji feels about getting blood on the floor.”

Hyerin snorted as she ripped open an alcohol swab.

“Yeah, she’s not a huge fan of bodily fluids in the halls,” Hyerin said. “She’s funny like that.” She took Wheein’s wrist in her hand, angling it so she could see the cut better. “This’ll sting a little.” Wheein winced while Hyerin disinfected the wound but didn’t say anything about the pain. She didn’t comment when Hyerin applied the bandages and gauze, either, and instead looked on intently the way she always did while she was getting patched up.

“Question for you,” she said when Hyerin was finished and washing her hands at the deep sink in the corner. “Where are we headed next?”

“We’re going to Cheoeum,” Hyerin said. “You know, the dwarf planet? Known for farming and mining?” Wheein stared back at her. “You didn’t read the memo Solji sent out yesterday morning?”

“I don’t have my work tablet,” Wheein admitted. Keeping her injury elevated, she used her free hand to pull at the front of her shirt, gauging the damages.

“Where is it?”

Wheein bit her lip contemplatively.

“I’m pretty sure it’s in one of the air ducts,” she said and before Hyerin could ask, she explained. “One of the heating vents had this rattle and Solji said it was annoying so I crawled inside to get a closer look. They’re bigger than you’d think. Anyway, I was using my tablet to light my way. I must’ve gotten distracted and wandered off but I’m pretty sure it’s still up there somewhere.”

With clean hands, Hyerin returned to the box of IV tubes.

“What about your phone?”

“That’s probably somewhere in the observatory,” Wheein said thoughtfully, referring to Solji’s favorite room on the ship.

Though Hyerin didn’t understand why (there were a lot of things Hyerin didn’t understand about spaceships), a whole chamber off the southernmost corridor had been set aside just so crewmembers could sit and watch space go by. It was, essentially, a giant glass dome with a couch and a coffee table inside. If ever the mood should strike, one of the girls could pop a squat and stare out into the vast universe they called home.

For Hyerin, that desire had never really presented itself. 

“What were you doing in the observatory?” she asked.

“Taking a nap,” Wheein admitted with a smirk. “It was an off-shift and I find it relaxing in there. But I woke up late and rushed out of there so my phone might be under the couch or between the cushions.”

“Make sure you find one of them,” Hyerin said as she marked down the number of 16 gauge needles she had left in stock. “Solji is big on sending memos lately. Anything important will be in your inbox.” She smiled teasingly. “And it’ll be good to know where we’re going if it comes up in conversation.”

With her good hand, Wheein saluted, then she hopped off the exam table.

“Thanks for the patch-up job,” she said as she headed for the door.

“Anytime,” Hyerin said. “You know you’re my favorite patient.”

Wheein was halfway out the door when she paused, her bandaged hand lingering on the door.

“Hyerin?”

“Yeah?”

When ten seconds had passed without a question, Hyerin peered up to find Wheein biting her lip and staring at the floor.

“Do you think it’s right that we go after Jiyong?”

Hyerin was only half-surprised by the inquiry.

She’d asked herself the same question at least thirty times in the last eight days.

Deep down in the dark, dusty corners of her heart was something that looked and felt an awful lot like doubt. It wasn’t that she doubted _Solji_. Hyerin trusted her wife more than she trusted the scientific principles that allowed them to hurtle through space. She trusted Solji’s judgment more than she trusted _gravity_.

But to Hyerin, this seemed like an unnecessary risk.

They were happy. They were secure. They were wealthy. Their ship didn’t need repairs. They didn’t need the glory of finding Jiyong to help them get work. There was no _real_ reason that they needed to go after Jiyong.

The night that the team had discussed it, everyone was riled up. They were excited, a hungry fire in their eyes. The God’s honest truth of the matter was that the Unity’s crew was arrogant. The girls knew how good they were and it made them cocky. They were used to being taken care of by a boss as competent and as generous as Solji and Hyerin thought (in that deep, dark part of herself) that it had spoiled them. They were coddled. They were used to a certain standard of living and a certain, steady workflow.

They were going after Jiyong because they were confident in their skills, perhaps to a fault. They all saw this as an easy job, an inevitable victory. They’d swoop in and school the other hundreds if not thousands of freelance ships who all had the same endgame.

Of everyone in the ‘verse, _they_ would be the ones to find Kwon Jiyong because _they_ were the best.

Then they’d have an extra hundred-million dollars that they didn’t need and they could blow it all and feel completely guilt-free about it. It would be disposable income that they had earned and they could buy heated floors and cupcake-makers.

Did Hyerin think that it was frivolous and maybe just the tiniest bit greedy? Probably, yeah.

But did Hyerin believe in Solji more than she believed that the sun would rise and set on earth that day? Absolutely. And part of joining Solji on the Unity meant that they presented an appropriately united front to the rest of the crew.

Solji was the captain and if she felt that this was the right path, Hyerin would be her biggest and most vocal supporter.

“Solji has never steered us wrong before,” Hyerin said. “She is one-hundred percent sure that we will find him and turn him in.” She put on her biggest, sweetest smile to hide any residual doubt that might’ve been lingering on her face. “And when we do, you get a whole new set of tools. Maybe a TV for your bedroom”

At that, Wheein’s face lit up.

“You’re right, Doc,” she said smiling. “I think the blood-loss is getting to me.” She waved her bandaged hand. “Thanks again for the Band-Aid.”

Hyerin nodded once and then Wheein was gone, probably off to take an unauthorized space-walk to fix a window or something equally dangerous, she sighed.

When she was having doubts about anything, she thought of Solji. On their wedding day, Hyerin had looked into Solji’s eyes and everything about the universe came into focus, fell into place and just made _sense_. Still, when she looked into her eyes each and every day, it was like every question she’d ever had found its answer and every worry she’d ever felt was suddenly vaporized.

Even now, as skeptical as she was, she knew she could just look to her tablet’s lock screen – a photo Hyerin had taken of Solji while the redhead was doing a puzzle in their dorm – and things would just be okay.

She was unsure of their path but she was devoted to her wife.

Solji wouldn’t steer them wrong.

A voice on the comm made her jump. Every room was fitted with an intercom and most messages came from the cockpit.

“Just an update,” said Sooyoung. “Based on my current calculations, we will be arriving in Cheoeum within three days. Probably closer to two but you can never account for some things. Please plan accordingly, ladies.” There was a pause and then another beep, indicating a new speaker.

“And tonight’s dinner,” Yoona said, “will be chicken and potatoes.”

Cheers and jeers flooded the comm, everyone voicing their opinion on the menu, and Hyerin smiled in spite of the weight that was crushing her shoulders.

Setting down her tablet, she moved to her SmartDummy. Inventory could wait. She needed to blow off some steam. Maybe she’d do a kidney transplant, just for kicks. It had been a while since she’d done one of those.

“Oh, Terry,” she said, reaching for her simulation goggles. “What are we gonna do?” She paused as if she expected a response and then shook her head. “If I’m talking to you like you’re going to answer, maybe _I_ should be the one on the table.” She slipped the goggles over her eyes and used the stylus to swipe at the air and select the surgery she wanted to perform.

When it was all set – the specific surgery, the patient’s details, the variables that increased or decreased difficulty – Hyerin cracked her neck, a habit she’d always had.

“It’s a beautiful day to save lives,” she said. “You ready Terry?” Terry didn’t answer. If he ever _did_ answer, Hyerin was in trouble. “Good. Let’s begin.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Hyuna drove the rover for one simple reason – Hyuna always drove.

Hyoyeon sat behind her, her arms wrapped loosely around Hyuna’s waist, her eyes unable to stay fixed to one spot for very long. But there wasn’t much to see.

The planet of Meonji was dusty, barren. It was mostly flat, stretching out like a long desert with bright red, clay soil that stuck to your boots and in the treads of your rover’s tires.

It wasn’t Hyoyeon’s favorite planet. It was like so many other small, outlier rocks, poorly-maintained and poorly-policed. The buildings were generally downtrodden, often boarded up and almost always covered with grungy graffiti, the markings of constant turf wars. These dark, forgotten planets attracted seedy characters and elicit behavior, all the thugs and wannabe gangsters of the ‘verse gathering in one place to beg, borrow and steal in the comfort of the shadows.

Hardly ever regulated by the Cosmos, outlier planets were notoriously dangerous. They weren’t always inherently violent but they weren’t somewhere you wanted to stop if you were looking for a night of wholesome fun and R&R.

Hyuna and Hyoyeon had met on a planet just like Meonji, though it had been in an entirely different solar system and a good three years prior. They’d been in the same bar, completely by chance, and Hyoyeon watched as a guy hassled Hyuna for nearly an hour, just not taking the hint that she wasn’t remotely interested.

He got handsy. Hyuna got nasty. The bartender got involved and so did some other patrons. A fight broke out. Hyoyeon had been sitting close enough to Hyuna to have watched it all transpire and because she felt an odd kinship with the girl (she _had_ been eavesdropping on her conversation for the last forty minutes), she came to her aide, pulling the shock-pen from where it resided in her boot and drilling the asshole right in the meaty part of his thigh, effectively paralyzing his whole leg.

He went down with a scream but by that point, nobody seemed to care. Societies on outlier planets lived eternally perched on a precarious edge and it took very little to throw the whole community (if you could call it that) into chaos. In this case, a creepy guy in a bar who wouldn’t take no for an answer managed to inadvertently start a brawl that spread across the entire town and lasted for two whole days.

In the ensuing scuffle, nobody noticed Hyoyeon pull the weapon and shock his leg. They didn’t notice her slip it back into her boot, nor did they see the way she grabbed Hyuna’s hand. They definitely didn’t hear her when she looked the taller girl in the eye and said, “Follow me.”

With surprising grace (it took a certain sort of experienced athleticism to dodge so many drunken, sprawling bodies), Hyoyeon led Hyuna quickly and carefully through a smoky corridor that eventually led out the door of a service entrance.

The commotion not yet having reached the outside world, all was quiet.

It had been dark inside the bar, either because the lighting system was shot or the crusty owner thought shadows gave the place some weird ambiance, and under the parking lot’s spotlights, Hyoyeon got a better look at Hyuna. She was very pretty, naturally so, with long, dark hair and intense eyes. In reality, she was probably only a few inches taller than Hyoyeon but the heels she wore gave her a significant boost. She was dressed like any other tough guy but something about her seemed very different than everyone else Hyoyeon had seen on that planet so far.

“Thanks for that,” Hyuna said. She was walking towards a silver motorcycle with off-road tires and mounted blasters. A lot of outlier planets lacked bona fide roadways and if you wanted to get around, you needed to equip your vehicle for the terrain. Clearly this girl spent a lot of time off the beaten path. She opened her leather jacket to reveal a gun tucked into her pants, then looked up and caught Hyoyeon’s eye. “I could’ve handled him myself but I probably would’ve spent a couple days locked up.”

“And on this planet,” Hyoyeon countered, “your lawyer might have some problems getting you out.”

Hyuna smirked.

“I owe you one.” She paused a second, appearing to size Hyoyeon up, and when she seemed pleased, she offered the older girl her hand. “Anyway, I’m Hyuna.”

Hyoyeon remembered it vividly.

Now they were on their way to yet another bar on yet another outlier rock and Hyoyeon wondered idly if they’d find themselves in any trouble.

If history was any guide, they would.

Big time.

The roof of Rocky’s came into view first, appearing over the edge of a steep hill. Rather than go over it, Hyuna took the scenic route and went around, the rover’s engine humming contentedly as they got closer and closer to their destination. It was a new enough model, though it lacked some bells and whistles that Hyuna would’ve liked. But since it was just a rental they were using to make this one trip, she got over it.

Their ship, the Juggernaut, didn’t lack any bells or whistles, and Hyuna knew she’d been spoiled on technology. Now, the Juggernaut was parked at a refueling station – the only one on the planet – about fifteen miles back. Hyuna kept a detailed list of all her ship’s gadgets and if she returned to find even a single power strip had been moved, she’d start breaking fingers.

She’d always enjoyed technology, always been amazed by electronics and weapons and software and the way it could all better her life and her ship. She’d always been sure to leave some room in their budget for new toys but if ever they couldn’t afford something, they found it somewhere, waited for their moment and then swiped it.

Realistically, she’d say about 30% of the Juggernaut’s shiny gadgets had been lifted from someone who wasn’t paying close enough attention to who was lurking near their goods. (Hyoyeon considered that to be a professional risk more than a well-calculated and well-executed felony but, then, she wasn't a lawyer.)

Around the side of the hill, Rocky’s reappeared and Hyoyeon frowned at the broken shingles and rotting wood. Humans could travel the depths of space, bouncing from planet to planet and even from galaxy to galaxy in a matter of days and hours, but they still sucked at basic upkeep. How hard was it to slap on a new coat of paint every once in a while?

The parking area was fairly full and Hyuna circled the lot a few times before pulling into an empty spot beneath a lamp post with a flickering bulb.

“This place is a dump,” Hyoyeon said when Hyuna had killed the motor.

“The bar or the planet?” Hyuna countered.

“Both,” she said, unzipping her coat. Now that they weren’t moving, Hyoyeon was beginning to feel the heat. The planet she and Hyuna called home wasn’t as close to the sun as this outlier rock and beads of sweat were forming on Hyoyeon’s forehead. If it hadn’t been for all the rock and sand that shot up beneath the rover’s tires while they drove, she wouldn’t have worn a coat at all. “I hope this goes smoothly. I want to get out of here, get back to the ship and get back in the air. At least while we’re flying, we have air conditioning.”

Hyuna pocketed the keys to the rental rover and smirked, nodding her chin at Rocky’s dilapidated bar.

“It’ll be quick, unnie,” she said. “We have other errands to run.”

Rocky’s smelled like every other outlier bar they’d ever been to – smoke, sweat, grease and the faint, lingering aroma of rocket fuel. The girls moved as a unit, not wanting to risk getting separated and extending their trip. If things went well, they could be in and out in just a few minutes and the faster they worked, the faster they’d get paid.

“You sure he’s working today?” Hyoyeon asked over the crackling audio of a low-quality sound system. The music playing over the speakers was dated, at least fifteen years old, but the clientele here was older than on other rocks. These guys were old-school, though they donned the same ripped denim and cheap leather as every other wannabe in the ‘verse.

To Hyoyeon, every outlier rock was basically the same and none of them particularly impressed her.

“When am I ever wrong?” Hyuna said. They made it another few steps, dodging sketchy men and women doing shots and talking trash before Hyuna laid eyes on their target. He was behind the bar, wearing a black muscle tee and a studded belt, and his hair was pinker than Hyuna remembered, but that was definitely Kim Namjoon.

“Once again, you were right,” Hyoyeon said, blowing stray stands of blonde hair out of her face. Her stomach rumbled. They’d been so busy that she’d been forced to skip two meals and she was so hungry that even the stench of greasy, salty bar food was beginning to seem appealing. “I bow to your infinite wisdom.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” she teased.

The crowd around the bar was three-people deep on all sides but Hyuna wasn’t deterred. Even on such little sleep, she and Hyoyeon were attractive enough to push their way to the front without much fuss. From what she could see, they were easily the prettiest girls in the bar and it wasn’t wasted on her how many heads had turned when they’d walked in the front door. Hyoyeon liked to jokingly suggest that using their good looks was a cheap trick but Hyoyeon’s father had always taught her to utilize whatever tools she had at her disposal.

Good genetics and lots of squats had given her a great ass. Who was she not to use it to her advantage?

“He looks busy,” Hyoyeon noted. And he was. Namjoon was dealing with a handful of loud, aggressive patrons at the other end of the bar, pouring drinks and wiping the sweat from his brow. It was good to see Hyoyeon wasn’t the only one affected by the heat.

“Just your typical Thursday morning space-drunks,” Hyuna said. “He can take a break for us.” Hyuna licked her lips before pounding her fist on the bar, briefly causing Namjoon to look over his shoulder. “Hey, Joonbug! Did you miss us?”

His smile was wide and bright, perfect, twin dimples appearing on his cheeks.

“Hyuna and Hyoyeon,” he said warmly, sliding a glass to a man in a lime green tank top. “The fearless crew of the Juggernaut right here in my bar. How did I get so lucky?”

“It’s good to see you too, Joonie,” Hyoyeon cooed sweetly. Namjoon was an old friend, one they didn’t see often but appreciated and admired all the same, and Hyoyeon had always had a little crush on him. He looked older now, broader, like more of a man than the last time they’d seen him, but he still had the characteristic softness and depth that made him Namjoon. “But we’re here on business.”

“Business here is booming,” he said, gesturing to the crowd. “What do you need?”

“We’re looking for someone,” Hyuna said, shouting because there was cheering happening somewhere on the other side of the room. She hadn’t noticed any television screens on the walls but it seemed likely that there was a sporting event being broadcasted somewhere in the bar. “A man who goes by Taeyang. Young, blonde, tatted up.”

“We’re told he likes to hang out here in your rustic establishment,” Hyoyeon added.

Down on Namjoon’s end of the bar, someone threw a punch.

“Hey, knock it off!” he shouted. “Don’t make me bounce your ass out of here!”

Hyoyeon rolled her eyes, grunting at the inconvenience. Of course they’d had to show up when everyone was feeling rowdy.

“Namjoon!” she said, cupping her hands over her mouth. “Taeyang! Do you know him?” But Namjoon didn’t hear her. He was busy swatting some guy who’d reached over the bar to grab a beer. “Yah! Namjoon! Listen, you son of a –”

Hyoyeon clamped her hand down on Hyuna’s shoulder.

“It’s not quite working, princess,” she said.

Hyuna exhaled through her nose, frustrated and annoyed.

“Alright,” she said. “Give me a boost.”

Hyoyeon linked her fingers together, giving Hyuna a quick, makeshift platform upon which Hyuna could plant her foot and climb up onto the bar.

“Oh, come on,” Namjoon said dramatically, suddenly noticing that his friends weren’t in the mood to play. “Can you _not_?”

“Hey!” Hyuna yelled out over the crowd. Like Namjoon, they ignored her and, like before, it pissed her off. “Hey!” When her cries fell on deaf ears, she snapped, grabbing a tray of glasses from behind the bar. She held it over her head and caught a quick flash of panic on Namjoon’s face before she threw it to the floor, smashing everything with an ear-splitting crash.

Hyoyeon stifled a laugh, covering her face with both hands.

Classic Hyuna.

But her impulsive, half-baked plan had worked – everyone suddenly shut up.

Hyoyeon glanced back up in time to catch Hyuna’s smile.

“Hello, everyone. Happy Thursday,” she said. “My partner and I–” Hyuna gestured down at Hyoyeon and the older girl waved to the crowd, “–are looking for a gentleman named Taeyang. Does anyone know where we can find him?”

There was a beat, the rowdy revelers staring up at her with contempt and confusion, but eventually a redhead near the pool table yelled back, “Taeyang’s friends with the owner. He should be in one of the back rooms.”

Hyuna’s smile was sweeter now, utterly pleased with herself. That made Hyoyeon shake her head. Kim Hyuna was a lot of things but humble? That had never really been one of them.

“Thank you,” Hyuna said. “Truly.”

She held out her hand and Hyoyeon took it, helping her down off the bar. Hyuna gestured to a hallway, silently suggesting that they go check all the rooms until they found Taeyang, and Hyoyeon nodded. They both stepped gingerly over the mess of broken glass Hyuna had left and behind them, Namjoon charged to the edge of the bar.

“Hey, you need to pay for that!” he shouted but when Hyoyeon looked back, there was a smirk on his lips. They could get on his nerves but he loved them anyway.

Hyuna didn’t look back, just held up her hand and waved goodbye as she headed towards the corridor.

“Put it on my tab,” she said.

 

* * *

 

 

The hallway opened up into six rooms – two bathrooms, an office and three rooms with “PRIVATE” painted on the door. The office was cluttered and grimy but otherwise empty and the bathrooms boasted nothing of any importance, leaving only the mysterious, private rooms.

“Why would this bar need private rooms?” Hyoyeon thought aloud and no sooner had the words left her mouth than they heard a thud, a giggle and a moan from the private room on the left. She sighed, rolled her eyes at her own naivety, and said, “Oh. Right.”

“I think we found Taeyang,” Hyuna said, smiling, her eyes twinkling with her desire to make trouble. She extended her arm to the door welcomingly. “Do you want to do the honors?”

Hyoyeon shook her head.

“Please,” she said. “After you.”

Hyuna’s smirk was dangerous. She cocked her leg back and kicked, the sole of her boot landing squarely in the middle of the door, sending it splintering from the frame with an ugly clatter. In the split second between the door splintering and the woman on Taeyang’s lap screaming bloody murder, Hyuna took a look around the small room.

It wasn’t much – peeling wallpaper, cheap lighting, a tattered, dark green couch, an armchair with ripped upholstery, a mini-fridge with glasses on top. It reminded Hyuna of the motels near refueling stations that could be rented by the hour. It was crude and minimal but it served its purpose.

“Good afternoon, Taeyang!” Hyuna greeted brightly. “How the heck are you?”

“Ah, what the fuck is this?” Taeyang shouted, scrambling to cover himself with a cushion when the woman leapt off his lap. She was young, pretty in a busted up sort of way, and wore a light pink dress that was now bunched up around her waist.

“So sorry to crash the party,” Hyuna said, “but we need to talk.” She noticed a jacket by the chair, probably the girl’s, and tossed it to her, frowning. “The pink-haired man behind the bar will pay you for your time.”

The girl in the dress was gone in a matter of seconds and Taeyang looked up at Hyuna, scowling, a couch pillow now covering what the jeans around his feet didn’t.

“You don’t know she was a working girl,” he said lowly. “She could’ve been my date.”

Hyuna rolled her eyes.

“ _Was_ she your date, Taeyang?” she teased.

He pouted.

“That’s none of your business.” He looked to Hyoyeon and nodded his chin. “New partner?” he asked. “Last time I saw you, you were flying solo. Max said you didn’t play well with others.”

Max was the mutual friend through whom Hyuna knew Taeyang. She’d actually only met Taeyang a few times, their paths crossing at parties and other social events back when she lived on a troublesome planet called Jiga. They weren’t friends exactly, though Hyuna did find the muscular brute to be pretty good company. He was sarcastic and just a little dumb, two things that made him fun to be around the few times they’d smoked together.

More importantly, though, Taeyang was known to run with a man named Kwon Jiyong. It had been over three years since the last time Hyuna had seen Taeyang and as such, she didn’t know if he still hung around with Jiyong and his crew. But Hyuna could think of a hundred-million reasons why it was worth a shot to talk to him about it.

“This is Hyoyeon,” Hyuna said, reaching back to rest her hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “The one person I do play well with.”

Taeyang glared at her, his eyes narrowed.

“Nice to meet you,” he said dryly. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Can’t a girl just visit an old acquaintance without him getting suspicious?” Hyuna teased, taking a seat in the ripped armchair and trying not to think about what kinds of things had gone on where she was sitting.

Taeyang was still staring right through her, his face void of any expression.

“You don’t just kick down a door and give a man blue balls for no good reason, Hyuna,” he said. “Now tell me what you want so you can get out of this shithole and I can put my pants back on.”

Hyoyeon laughed. Hyuna was right – he was amusing.

“Okay, Taeyang,” Hyuna said, leaning forward so that she could rest her elbows on her knees. “We need to have a little chat, you and I.”

He blinked.

“A chat about...?”

“About your good friend Jiyong,” she said.

Taeyang’s face lit up, the sudden realization hitting him like a brick. He always had been a little slow to reach the point but now that he’d caught up, a taunting smile spread across his lips.

“Oh, Hyuna,” he said. He licked his lips, his dark eyes glowing. As Hyuna had expected, he was tickled by her intentions. “Don’t tell me you’re one of _those_. Don’t tell me you’re joining the great space race to find Jiyong. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen so far.” His eyes flickered from Hyuna to Hyoyeon and back again before he laughed out loud, the sound bouncing off the dingy walls of the tiny room. “Girl, you’re better than that.”

Hyoyeon looked to Hyuna, trying to gauge her reaction, but Hyuna didn’t have one. She just shrugged.

“No one is better than a hundred-million bucks, Taeyang.”

“It’s all about the money with you, isn’t it?” he asked.

Her resounding smile was very faint.

“What else is there?” she asked sweetly. Hyuna inched to the edge of her seat, leaning closer to Taeyang. “Listen, tough guy, we’re very sorry that we interrupted your date but I have questions and I think you have answers.”

“What makes you think I have answers?” he asked, running a hand through his light hair. His other hand stayed planted in the middle of the pillow. “Jiyong and I weren’t that close.”

“I know,” she said. “I remember. But you know who he _was_ close to and that could come in handy.”

Taeyang rolled his eyes.

“And what do I get out of the deal?” he teased.

“Next time I’m here,” she said, “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“I’ll chip in for your next date, too,” Hyoyeon piped up, her snark bringing a smile to Taeyang’s lips.

Hyuna smiled, too. She’d always felt like Hyoyeon’s skills, her personality, her traits all picked up right where her own left off. It seemed like they were two halves of the same person and together, they were complete. Together, they were strong and whole, significantly better than they’d been apart.

“You’re really looking for Jiyong?” Taeyang asked. “You’re really gonna track him down, tie him up and turn him into the Cosmos authorities?”

Hyuna nodded.

“That’s the plan, my good sir.”

“Then before I tell you what I know,” he said, “I have a question for you.”

Hyuna held out her hands, welcoming an inquiry.

“By all means,” she said.

“You _hate_ the Cosmos,” Taeyang said. Sure, they’d only met a handful of times but Hyuna’s reputation preceded her. She was well-liked in their mutual circle and Taeyang often found himself listening to in-depth conversations about Hyuna. He knew things about her, about her past, and her presence here in the back room of Rocky’s didn’t make any kinds of sense to him. “You _hate_ the government.”

“That’s not a question,” Hyuna said after a beat.

“The Cosmos killed your father,” Taeyang said and Hyoyeon felt the color drain from her face. She looked to Hyuna again, a reflex, expecting to see pain or rage or something but Hyuna hadn’t moved a single muscle. She hadn’t frowned or flinched or grimaced or even blinked. Hyoyeon had to admit her friend had one hell of a poker face.

“You still haven’t asked me a question,” Hyuna said softly.

“Why do you want to help the people that ruined your life?” he asked, his tone almost cruel. “Why are you trying to help the Cosmos?”

Despite the sudden crushing sensation that was blooming in her chest and stomach, Hyuna kept her face very still. It was true that she hated the Cosmos, true that she hated the government with every single cell in her body. She’d always known that her father was a criminal – a freelance smuggler who was a bit of a legend in his field – but he’d never been violent. He’d never hurt anyone. He was just a pirate, a talented pilot who took crystals, weapons, and tech parts from galaxy to galaxy.

But back in those days, the Cosmos was cracking down on smugglers. Her father’s team was the best of the best and when they’d finally caught him, when the blitzed him and cornered him, he sacrificed himself so that the rest of the crew could get away.

He’d said it was a captain’s duty.

The Cosmos threw him in the super-max prison on Keun Gamog, the same facility from which Jiyong had escaped, and he was killed inside when Hyuna was eleven. Not long after this arrest and subsequent murder, they hauled her mother in for questioning. They were sure that she knew all about her father's life of crime and when she wouldn't speak, they tried to use Hyuna as leverage. Her mother, the woman from whom she'd inherited her bad temper, was overcome with anger and grief and took a hard swing at one of the interrogating officers. She broke his nose and her partner shot her dead.

Things had been different then, and Hyuna was an orphan before her twelfth birthday.

She didn't like to talk about the four years she'd spent in the group home on Daedosi and so she didn't. There were only two people in the world who knew about the things that happened to her on Daedosi, and she preferred to keep it that way. As far as anyone else was concerned, her life didn't even start until she was eighteen and far, far away from that shitty planet and that awful fucking home.

As much as she loved her father, Hyuna had been forced to change her name. She didn’t have much of a choice. She wanted to a be a pilot like her dad and she couldn’t do that if the Cosmos was always tracking her, always riding her ass, always giving her grief every time she left and reentered the solar system. When she was sixteen, the second she left the home, she became Kim Hyuna. Eventually, she befriended an incredible hacker named Luhan who completely erased the first twenty years of her life from the Cosmos-regulated super-net.

When she was fingerprinted, searched, scanned or background checked, she appeared as Kim Hyuna, the daughter of a scientist from Geum Haneul. Nobody outside her own family knew that she was the daughter of one of the ‘verse’s most famous pirates, though apparently Taeyang had gotten the information from someone in their inner circle.

Hyoyeon knew. It was something they never, ever talked about but she knew about Hyuna’s past, she knew who she was. And now, standing here between her best friend and the pantsless man who was digging up all Hyuna’s family secrets, Hyoyeon was wildly uncomfortable.

But Hyuna had ice water in her veins.

She leaned back in the dirty armchair, making herself comfortable and said, “What better way to get back at the Cosmos than to have them unknowingly grant a hundred-million dollars to the daughter of their most infamous smuggler?” Taeyang seemed pleased by that answer. Hyoyeon was, too. “They did ruin my life, Taeyang, but they don’t know who I am and they don’t know that I’m just as good as my dad. So I’d like to find Jiyong, bring him to the Cosmos, collect my money and then go back to my life of crime and pissing all over the government’s ridiculous laws. Okay?”

His thin lips twisted into a genuine smile and Hyuna thought for a second that maybe he found her just as entertaining as she found him.

“Now tell us something,” Hyoyeon said, wanting to break the sudden silence. “You got your answers. Give us ours.”

Taeyang stared up at her. If he wasn’t being such an ass, Hyoyeon might’ve found him attractive. She’d always had a thing for bad boys.

“I stopped talking to Jiyong about six months before he got arrested,” Taeyang admitted finally. “We had some common interests and we got along fine but he started getting… weird.”

“Weird how?” Hyuna prompted, an eyebrow cocked with intrigue.

“Too caught up in himself,” Taeyang explained. “Too preachy. He was working with some underground hacktivist group, some guys who were all about Berm preservation. His whole life became about the cause and it got annoying. He was a real douche-star about it. We’d be drinking and having a good time and Jiyong would show up, preaching about the Berm and driving everyone nuts.”

“Berm preservation?” Hyuna asked. “You sure?”

Taeyang nodded.

“It’s kind of hard to forget, Hyuna.”

Humans and Berm had been sharing a galaxy for nearly a thousand years but still, a lot of people just couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Human beings had always been exceptionally good at waging wars and starting unnecessary conflict, and although humanity had evolved so far scientifically that they could travel entire galaxies in the blink of an eye, they couldn’t fight their most primitive urges – to fear and to fight the things that were different from them.

A lot of people had no problem with the Berm. They were peaceful. They left each other alone. There was a sort of silent respect between them. They kept their distance and lived in harmony.

But, still, a lot of people thought that humans should be the only living creatures in this corner of the ‘verse. They wanted the land that belonged to the Berm. They stirred up shit that needn’t be stirred, starting violent battles between the two species and inciting widespread fear.

Hyuna was sure that the majority of space-dwellers had no problem with the Berm but, as it had always been, the hateful, ignorant voices were the loudest. They were fear-mongers and they used lies and propaganda to spread panic and hatred.

As a result, people were killing Berm at a more aggressive rate than ever.

There were dozens (if not hundreds) of “Save The Berm” foundations floating around the ‘verse but Hyuna had never considered the possibility that Jiyong had gotten tangled up in one.

He’d been arrested for _treason_ of all things, something so rare and so vague that Hyuna had had no idea what the fuck it actually meant in terms of present-day Cosmos law.

“If you want _real_ answers,” Taeyang said, “you need to see a man named Kang Daesung. I don’t know where he is now but he was always Jiyong’s best friend. I can’t say for sure but I think he was involved with the foundation, too. Whatever Daesung did, Jiyong did and vice versa. They were probably in this shit together. It would surprise me if they weren’t.”

“Kang Daesung?” Hyoyeon repeated for confirmation, pulling a small work tablet from her back pocket.

Taeyang nodded.

“He’s the same age as Jiyong. I think he’s from Chulsaeng originally. He’s not a pilot. He might be an engineer.” He looked Hyuna up and down and then did the same to Hyoyeon. “You’re probably going to have to trick him or seduce him if you want information. If he thinks you’re working for the Cosmos, he’s not gonna say shit. He’s not gonna give up his best friend.”

Hyuna considered that. If her reputation really did precede her and people _did_ know how she felt about the government, she could use it to her advantage. And if that didn’t work, Hyoyeon had the tits and she had the ass to get him to speak up.

She could tell Taeyang had nothing more to offer them and so she stood up. She closed the gap between them, smiling down at Taeyang as she squeezed his chin with her right hand.

“You’ve been a great help, Yang,” she said. She reached inside her jacket, pulled out her wallet and retrieved a few hundred dollars which she placed on top of his cushion. “Let’s meet under less exciting circumstances next time, huh?” She gave his cheek a light pat and turned on her heel. “Ready to go?” she asked Hyoyeon. The blonde simply nodded. “Goodbye, Taeyang,” she said over her shoulder. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

“Same to you,” he mumbled.

Hyuna would’ve closed the door behind them but it was still laying in a sad heap on the floor. They’d need Namjoon to put _that_ on their tab, too.

They made it out of Rocky’s without causing any further commotion, slipping out the front door without catching the attention of Namjoon or anyone else. The wave of humidity that hit them as soon as they stepped into the parking lot made Hyoyeon uncomfortable but they’d be on the road and back in the air soon enough.

“We need to find out everything we can on Kang Daesung,” Hyuna said as they approached the rental rover. “We need to know everything from his birthday to his favorite show to if he had braces as a kid. If this guy takes a shit, I want to know about it. The more we know about him, the easier it’ll be to break into his head.”

“We’re not _really_ gonna use our good looks and our masterful deception to trick this poor bastard into giving up his best friend,” said Hyoyeon, “are we?”

Hyuna smiled, stopping dead in her tracks so that she could get a good look at Hyoyeon.

“You mean use our feminine wiles and our hot bodies to trick some sweet, unsuspecting boy into spilling his secrets?” Hyuna suggested with a gasp. She hooked her arm around Hyoyeon’s waist, pulling her closer as the blonde giggled. “Of course not, unnie. That would be wrong. That would be trouble.” She pushed the button on the rover’s keyring, starting the engine with a pleasing rumble. “And you and I _never_ get into trouble.”


	5. Chapter 5

Moonbyul had just taken a seat at her desk when she heard Elly’s voice.

“We might run into a little bit of turbulence during our landing today,” she said from the cockpit and Moonbyul rolled her eyes, reaching for the walkie-talkie near her computer. They hadn’t had a functional intercom system in about two years. Walkie-talkies were crude and incredibly obsolete but they worked every time and now that they only had one working tablet, it was the best they could do.

“A little bit?” she asked. “And why’s that, Captain?”

Elly hesitated and Moonbyul could picture her face, annoyed and frustrated.

“Because we’re missing some parts that would otherwise help us land smoothly,” she said coldly. “Don’t you have something you could be taking apart and putting back together?”

On her workbench was an old, junky motor she’d been tinkering with lately. Beyond that was a stack of notebooks in which she’d been drawing diagrams and trying to come up with ways to upgrade certain mechanics on-ship. Then, of course, there was the engine itself, giant and noisy and _always_ in need of some TLC.

“Don’t crash the ship, Elly,” said Moonbyul, her eyes glued to the schematics on her desk. She would love to stay on the line and give Elly a hard time but she had a lot of work to do. “We truly can’t afford a single repair.”

“Just focus on your toys, grease monkey,” Elly chided. “I’ll take care of us.”

“I know you will, mama,” Moonbyul said with a sigh and a reluctant smile. “Keep me posted.”

She clicked off the walkie and pushed it away, running her hands through her long hair.

It had been a very long journey and it had only just begun.

The decision to go after Jiyong had been made in all of forty seconds. They needed supplies to make the trip but when Elly mentioned pawning her father’s watch, Moonbyul almost slapped her in the face. The ensuing discussion was emotional, almost heated. Moonbyul would sell her own body before she left Elly give up that watch. When it came down to it, she snuck away while Elly was asleep and sold the only things she owned that were of any worth – a laptop, a valuable toolset and a bunch of in-demand silver wires that could be used for a whole array of high-tech hardware upgrades.

By the time Elly woke up, they were two-grand richer and Moonbyul was feeling incredibly comforted knowing that her best friend wouldn’t have to hock her most prized possession. That would’ve been too big a pill to swallow. Moonbyul wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she let Elly do that. Better they end up on the streets, the Pandora broken and repossessed and sitting in some tow yard, than Elly giving up the one true connection she had to her father on earth.

She wouldn’t let that happen.

She didn’t need the laptop anyway. Sunny had a whole room of computers and never minded if Moonbyul borrowed one. She had more than enough tools to get by and the flashy, expensive ones just made repairs go a little quicker. And the wire? There was hardly anything on-board stable enough to be upgraded.

All of it was easily replaceable. Elly’s watch wasn’t. Moonbyul knew that Elly felt guilty about it all, knew that, as the captain, she had the weight of a thousand worlds on her shoulders, but Moonbyul just considered it to be an act of teamwork.

If they wanted to find Jiyong, they needed enough supplies to make the trip. And for that to happen, someone had to make a sacrifice.

For Moonbyul, it was that simple.

She’d used the free trial version of a ship-scanning software to create the schematics currently littering her desktop and now she scanned them very carefully and with a very sharp eye. She’d wanted something tangible, something more than just images and ideas in her memory, and these sheets satiated that need.

Moonbyul had spent at least an hour going through each page, her finger tracing corridors and ports and weapons and facilities. She chewed her bottom lip, muttering to herself as she brainstormed ways to improve the ship while spending as little money possible. How could she increase fuel efficiency? How could she fix those “crossed wire” issues that got in the way of their daily life? How could she keep the back thrusters from falling the fuck off every time they ran into some choppy waters?

Elly’s voice came through the walkie again, cutting through the quiet and startling Moonbyul.

The words themselves weren’t much of a comfort, either.

“Approaching Cheoeum’s atmosphere,” Elly announced, her voice unsure. “It’s gonna be… a little bumpy. Might want to fasten your seatbelts.”

Moonbyul looked down.

She was sitting in her desk chair. She didn’t have a seatbelt.

She had _wheels_.

Before she could think of what she should do next, the ship shifted, the engine room suddenly tilting at a sharp forty-five-degree angle. It was bad news for Moonbyul. Now that the room was sloping downward, so was she, the chair hurtling itself towards the wall faster than she would’ve liked.

But Moonbyul had quick reflexes. She couldn’t quite find the time to eject herself from the stupid chair but she was fast enough to cover her face with her arms. As a result, her body took all the impact and her head was protected. Still, she crashed into the wall, flipping out of her chair and landing on the floor in a crumpled heap.

She kept her head down just in case Elly wanted to do some trick flips on the way to Cheoeum but after about a half minute of unfortunate tipping, the ship leveled.

Moonbyul breathed a sigh of relief but stayed on the floor. Her forearms were sore from where she’d collided with the wall but otherwise, she was okay. If the ship had tilted in the other direction, she would’ve been thrown into the engine and that, she was sure, would’ve ended with more significant damages.

“Sorry about that,” Elly said, her voice steadier than it had been before. “I was worried that might happen. Is everyone okay?”

“I spilled my coffee,” Sunny said, “but otherwise, I’m peachy.”

“Byul?” Elly asked. From the floor, Moonbyul could see the walkie-talkie but she didn’t have the drive to spring to her feet and pick it back up. “Byul?”

“Oh, great,” said Sunny. “You killed Moonbyul. And after everything she’s done for you.”

“Byul, please join us on the super high-tech comm and tell us you’re still breathing.”

With a grunt and a swear, Moonbyul peeled herself off the ground and trudged back to her desk, ignoring the way her chair was flipped upside down and parked by the door.

“Elly,” she gritted out, “I mean this with love, but you’re a shitty driver.”

From somewhere in the ship, Sunny snorted. Moonbyul couldn’t see her friends but she could picture their smiles all the same.

“Glad to know you’re still with us,” Elly said. “Now go sit somewhere safe. We’re landing in ten minutes.”

 

* * *

 

Cheoeum looked exactly how Moonbyul remembered but she’d only ever been there once before.

The planet was so small that it had neither a refueling station nor an formal landing port. You kind of just picked a field and landed there, hoping that you weren’t squashing any crops or cows on the way down. With fertile soil and mountains packed full of valuable minerals, the people of Cheoeum were virtually all either farmers or miners.

Elly spotted a nice, open spot beneath the shade of a tall cliff and tucked the Pandora away in the shadows, free from whatever harm could come to it in a planet inhabited entirely by ranchers.

“This planet smells like manure,” Sunny said when they started up a gravel path that appeared to lead to something like civilization. Moonbyul knew there wasn’t an actual city anywhere on Cheoeum but there was a collection of shops and business in the dead center of all that farmland that was technically considered a village. From where they’d parked, it was about a mile walk and it gave all three of them plenty of time to contemplate their lives.

They’d gone to Cheoeum because Elly had received a trip from a trusted friend named Baekhyun. Moonbyul was quietly against it but even she had to admit it was their only clear first step. The more they walked, the more Moonbyul couldn’t believe that the Cosmos’ most-wanted criminal was hiding out among the wheat fields and the silver reserves.

But Elly said that her friend was credible, said that he had insider information and that she trusted Baekhyun’s judgment. And because they literally had nowhere else to start (how do you begin to find one man who could be anywhere in any number of galaxies?), they made the short journey from Geum Haneul.

Worst case scenario, they’d at least be able to stock up on some fresh produce.

Sunny was saying something to Elly but Moonbyul wasn’t listening. She was looking at the endless fields, the distant mountains, the murky sky. She’d spent the first twenty years of her life on earth where the sky was always blue. There was no variation outside of sunsets and cloudy days. The sky was blue. That was the first honest-to-goodness fact that every child learned and Moonbyul didn’t think she’d ever get used to visiting planets where the sky above was anything else.

She liked Geum Haneul but looking up and seeing gold instead of blue would throw her off every single time. Something about it just seemed unnatural.

Sunny was right. The planet _did_ smell like manure, but also dirt and grass and something Moonbyul couldn’t place. Pesticides? What kind of bugs lived on Cheoeum? In any event, she liked it. They spent most of their time in the sky and the rest of it in crowded cities. A small part of her missed the sights and sounds of the great outdoors, though she’d never want to stay on a planet this small and rural for more than a few days.

It would be too boring.

But as the village came into view and Moonbyul could make out buildings and people and rovers (and horses, of all things), she was sure that their next few weeks would be anything but.

Whatever this ended up being, it was only the beginning.

The gravel road soon faded into dirt. Soon, the only ground they could _see_ was dirt, dry and dusty under their boots. Moonbyul figured the paved roads were for tractors and buggies, all smoothed and well-maintained so that farmers could get from their homes and into town without much difficulty. But in the village itself, it was all foot-traffic. Moonbyul could tell from the tracks in the dust.

There wasn’t much to see. The buildings were all either dingy wood or weather-worn concrete. There were some shops (a feed supply store, a guns-and-ammo shop, some rudimentary department stores and a grocery store with a broken neon sign), some community-essentials (town hall, the post office, a very tiny library) and what looked like ramshackle apartment buildings.

There were people around – some shopping, some chatting, some loitering – but no one paid them any mind. Moonbyul couldn’t imagine Cheoeum got many visitors or tourists so maybe the locals just assumed their out-of-place group was looking to buy some silver.

“Where do we even start?” Sunny asked. She was shorter than Elly and Moonbyul but she somehow walked the fastest. Even now, she was about three paces ahead and had to look over her shoulder to address them. “Just get up on a milk crate and ask, ‘Hey, has anyone seen Jiyong?’”

Elly raised an arm and pointed to a building with peeling white paint and a bright blue sign.

“Post office,” she said. “Baekhyun gave me a list of names, people we should check out. I don’t know their addresses but I bet whoever runs the mail will.”

Moonbyul nodded but something else caught her eye before they made it to the front door.

A group of people a little younger than herself were crowding the alleyway between the food store and the ammo shop. They were shouting, cheers and jeers reverberating off the cracking walls, and appeared to be tossing around a pair of dice.

Gambling, something at which Moonbyul had always excelled.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elly say Moonbyul’s face light up.

“Oh, no, Byul,” she said. “We don’t have enough money for you to be throwing it away on dice games.”

“We can spare a few dollars,” she insisted, breaking away from the group. “Any money I win goes right into the fuel tank!” Her hands were already in the pockets of her red letterman jacket, digging around for extra cash.

“That girl is a trip,” Sunny said, looking back at Moonbyul who had already easily joined the group in the alley. She was crouching beside a young man with a freshly-buzzed mohawk like she’d known him for years. Moonbyul had always had a way with people.

“Yeah she’s something else,” Elly murmured. They’d made it to the front porch of the post office and Elly opened the door, holding it for Sunny. “After you,” she said.

The inside of the building was just as drab and rustic as the exterior suggested. Frankly, this whole planet seemed like it was lost in time, hopelessly stuck in a world from hundreds of years before. But part of Elly, the bitter part that knew her best friend had just sold all her favorite toys to help keep the ship up and running, was jealous. These people had it easy. They were doing things right. They didn’t have to scour the galaxy for a criminal in hopes that they could one day pay their bills and fly around in something other than a hard-to-manage deathtrap.

“How can I help you young ladies?” a heavyset woman behind the counter asked as she closed her book. Her hair was dark red and cropped short and her denim vest was embroidered with pink and yellow flowers. She must’ve noticed the lost, thoughtful look on their faces because she added with a crooked smile, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No ma’am,” Elly said. “We’re actually here looking for somebody.”

“Looking for somebody?” she parroted, leaning her elbows on the counter.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Elly, reaching inside her jacket for Moonbyul’s tablet. The simple motion sent a twinge of up her shoulder before settling like a knot in the base of her neck. She did her best not to outwardly groan.

For people with advanced ships, flying wasn’t a very physical game. Most ships were equipped with extremely powerful, extremely accurate auto-pilot capabilities. For the most part, pilots programmed in where they wanted to go, and how and when they wanted to get there. They calibrated certain things, made tactical decisions about the journey, and stayed in the driver’s seat in case something went wrong. With advances in modern technology, pilots had an easier time than ever.

But nearly all of the Pandora’s auto-pilot features had broken in some way or another. Elly didn’t have the luxury of punching in an address and letting the ship fly itself. When she flew, it was strenuous. It was hard on her back, her arms and her eyes. She spent hours upon hours in the pilot’s seat, her hands flying around the cockpit, pushing buttons and pulling levers and trying to steady manual throttles that other pilot’s never had to touch. (A lot of newer ships didn’t even _have_ manual controls.)

She was always tired and she was always sore.

Elly unlocked the tablet and swiped to the list of names that Baekhyun had sent her. He was a good friend, the kind of devious brain who had dirt on just about everyone in the ‘verse, and he’d helped her without giving it a second thought. Elly figured Baekhyun knew that helping her could mean that she, Sunny and Moonbyul could potentially make a hundred-million dollars while he made nothing. But either he didn’t think that they’d actually _find_ Jiyong or he didn’t give a fuck.

Either way, he gave them three names – all farmers on Cheoeum.

“I’m looking for the Huangs, the Augustines and the Lombards,” Elly said, reading the names off the screen, and she noticed the older woman’s grimace right away.

“We have privacy rules, you know,” the woman said, her tone changing from friendly to annoyed like Elly had flipped a switch. “Even on a planet as small as this one, we have rules. We can’t just be giving out names and addresses. It goes against policy.”

Elly fought a frown. She’d been so tired and so thinly-spread that she hadn’t even considered meeting with resistance. She'd kind of just figured they'd ask politely and get the information without any fuss. It never even occurred to her that it would be more complicated than that. But this woman, with her round face and deeply-set wrinkles and straight-browed scowl didn't look like she was planning to share _anything_ with the nosy out-of-towners, no matter how nicely they asked.

Elly was just starting to think of a new plan when Sunny piped up, standing up straighter as she donned her most professional smile.

“Ma’am,” she said, “we’re with the Cosmos. We’re investigating, informally, and looking into the sudden disappearance of Kwon Jiyong, the felon. You’ve heard of him?”

Though she was still eyeing them with an uncomfortable intensity, the woman nodded.

“Of course,” she said. “His name and face are plastered all over ‘verse.”

“We pay really close attention to what people say online, what names and places get mentioned most frequently in connection to Jiyong, and these three family farms keep popping up. We don’t think that they have anything to do with Jiyong and we don’t want them hassled by freelance bounty-hunters who are looking to claim the reward at any cost. Small farms and family values keep this 'verse afloat, ma'am, and we don't want this kind of big-city chaos showing up at your door.”

Elly was dumbfounded, eternally impressed and boggled by her friend’s ability to think on her feet, but she caught on just in time.

“There are a lot of innocent people being bothered by money-grubbing freelancers, ma’am,” she said, “and we’re just doing our best to even the score. We’re checking into people to make sure they really are unconnected and then we’re wiping their names from the ‘verse ‘net so that nobody can bother them.”

The old woman looked at Elly, then at Sunny and then back again, both of them suddenly exuding an air of the utmost professionalism and sincerity.

“The Cosmos is doing all this?” she asked.

“Ma’am, the Cosmos is incredibly well-staffed,” Sunny said. “We exist for the sole purpose of keeping peace in the ‘verse and spreading prosperity.”

“And if our asking the public for help finding Jiyong inadvertently results in good, honest, hard-working people be harassed,” Elly continued, “then we need to try our very best to make good. Otherwise, we look bad.”

“And it makes our bosses look even worse,” Sunny said lightly, her tone that of someone who was standing around an office water cooler, shooting the breeze with fellow paper-pushers. “And we certainly can’t have that.”

It was cheesy but somehow, it worked. After a moment of consideration, the woman’s face softened and when she smiled this time, she looked considerably younger.

“Don’t you hate that?” she said. “When it’s up to you to keep the boss looking good?” She shook her head, clicking her tongue. Clearly an authority figure in the past had pissed her off. “What are those names again?” Elly angled the tablet so that the woman could see and she squinted as she said, “Okay. Let me program their addresses into a chip. Wait here.”

When she was out of earshot, Elly shoved Sunny so hard she almost fell over.

“Now _that’s_ some quick-thinking,” she said quietly.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Sunny said, shaking her head and blowing her bangs out of her face. “I really thought she’d see right through us.” She looked down at herself, admiring her bright yellow shirt and ripped jeans and then ran a hand through her red hair. “I guess I pass for a Cosmos sheriff.”

Elly snorted.

“It’ll be a sad day for the Cosmos if they ever hire us,” she said.

“Good thing she didn’t ask to see ID,” Sunny murmured.

When the redhead returned, she handed Elly a small, disposable microchip that would pop into the reader on her tablet and send the information programmed onto it to the appropriate app. In this case, it would send the addresses right to her GPS. It was the advanced technological equivalent of writing on a Post-It note.

“Do you girls have a rover?” she asked.

“Yes,” Elly lied.

“These three farms aren’t very far from here,” she explained. “You’ll see them on the map. It makes the most sense to visit the Augustines first and then the Lombards and save the Huangs for last but you’re smart girls. You’ll figure it out.”

“Thank you so much for your time and for your help,” Sunny said, reverting in an instant back to her phony professionalism. She gestured to the chip, smiling sweetly. “And I’m sure these three families will thank you, too.”

They phoned in a few more empty, courteous words before ducking out the front door, trying to get out of dodge before the woman realized she’d been played and called the _actual_ authorities.

Then again, did Cheoeum even have a formal police presence?

Moonbyul was sitting on the bottom step when they got back outside and before Elly had a chance to say anything, Byul was on her feet and waving around a wad of cash.

“Hey, losers,” she said, a smile spread across her face. “I won a whole bunch of money by rolling a pair of sixes. What the heck have _you_ done today?”

Elly held up the tablet.

“We got addresses,” she said smugly. Moonbyul’s smile dropped for a brief second, upset about having been one-upped, but it was back just as quickly as it had disappeared. “You beat all those big, strong boys?”

Snorting, she rolled her eyes.

“Elly, baby, there’s never been a boy who’s been any match for me,” she said lowly, a familiar arrogance exuding from her like smoke. “You get the addresses with no problem?”

Sunny grinned and looked up at Elly.

“We may have employed some,” she paused and gestured with both hands, “creative deception.”

Moonbyul cocked an eyebrow as she slipped the money in her pocket.

“How creative we talking?”

Sunny licked her lips and nudged Elly’s ribs with her elbow.

“Let’s just say if anyone asks, we’re Cosmos officials,” she said and Moonbyul laughed out loud.

It wasn’t wasted of Elly how much Sunny and Moonbyul were contributing to their efforts. Thanks to Moonbyul’s skill at dice games and her sacrifice back on Geum Haneul, they had money in the bank. Thanks to Sunny’s charm and quick-thinking, they had addresses. And as she watched them chatting and teasing, standing in the dust of Cheoeum, Elly felt a swell of pride and affection wrap around her heart and ribs and squeeze inside her chest.

Right after that warm, fuzzy feeling passed, though, she was wracked with guilt once again. Moonbyul and Sunny were doing so much to help and Elly felt like she was only bringing tough times and bad luck. It was _her_ busted-up ship that had them searching under space rocks for pocket change. It was her fault they were doing all this.

And they weren’t even complaining.

They were just doing their best and supporting all of her choices as a captain.

“We need a rover,” Sunny said. While Elly had been thinking, she’d unconsciously followed them back down the path from which they came and now she found herself at the edge of the village. “Do you think there’s a rental place somewhere?”

“Not likely,” Elly said, squinting. There were no trees on this part of the path and the direct sunlight stung her eyes. “I don’t think they have anything so formal.”

“Then how do we get wheels?”

Moonbyul was standing a few feet away, hands shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked around. There was some sort of recreation center on the other side of the trail and a young man in a basketball jersey was taking a bag from the back of a rickety rover with a bad paint job. It wasn’t much but it looked like it was built to seat four.

“Hey, kid!” Moonbyul shouted. “That thing got gas in its tank?” Confused, the young man nodded. She pulled a few bills from her jacket and waved it like a flag. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if we can borrow it for two hours.”

“Sold,” he said. When they got closer, Elly noticed that his duffel was actually a gym bag. “I’ve got a game anyway.”

Moonbyul handed him the money and then her cell phone.

“For collateral,” she said.

Elly wanted to kiss her. Yet again, Moonbyul was taking one for the team without a second thought. Yet again, she was the reason that they were up and running. Yet again, she was carrying them.

“Don’t crash it,” the man said, pocketing both the phone and the cash. “I can’t afford to get it repaired.”

Elly smiled as she took his keys.

“I feel that,” she mumbled.

 

* * *

 

According to the tablet, the trip took two hours and fourteen minutes.

And they came up with absolutely nothing.

Following the redhead’s advice, they visited the Augustine family first. According to Baekhyun’s intel, Jiyong used to be tight with their oldest son, Clifford, back in high school. But Clifford had gone to college on Geum Haneul three years before and hadn’t been home in months.

Under the guise of using the bathroom, Sunny had snuck into Clifford’s old room and scanned his hard drive. He hadn’t logged in since December, corroborating the story that he hadn’t visited since Christmas. When he _had_ , he’d only checked sports scores and porn sites. The other hits were all child-friendly gaming sites, probably the work of his nine-year-old brother.

If Clifford and Jiyong had ever been friends, it was a friendship that now existed only in memories.

The Lombards lived on a soybean farm twenty miles from the village. Their daughter, Noelle, had dated one of Jiyong’s closest friends. Baekhyun had attached three different pictures of Noelle with Jiyong, two of them group-shots and one of just the two of them. They looked happy, chummy.

But Noelle wasn’t home. Nobody was. The Lombard farm actually appeared to be downright deserted and the girls spent a solid fifteen minutes trying to break into the house before giving up and spending the next forty searching the property.

They were nowhere to be found. Maybe they’d seen the news and had a feeling some pilots were coming to talk to them.

The Huangs were last. Their farm was the smallest and so was their home. The girls expected a family but all the found was an elderly man named Feng. It was fine, though, because he was actually the one whose name had been mentioned in the email. Baekhyun said that Mr. Huang was an old Kung Fu master and had acted as Jiyong’s mentor after Jiyong graduated. But this was the wrong Mr. Huang. Feng didn’t know Kung Fu _or_ Jiyong. His brother Kuo had been the martial arts expert and he had been the one to teach Jiyong.

Feng said he remembered it vividly but just in case he was a few stars short of a galaxy, Sunny stepped outside and ran a background check on the tablet. While making the girls some tea, Feng explained that Jiyong was Kuo’s favorite student, how he was respectful and intelligent and naturally athletic. He insisted that Jiyong was a good boy and that he couldn’t believe Jiyong would ever get himself into this kind of trouble. Elly asked where they could find Kuo but Feng informed them that his brother had died last summer.

When Sunny confirmed that they had the wrong brother, the girls thanked Feng for his time and left with their tails between their legs.

It was after four-thirty when they got back to the village and Moonbyul ran inside the rec-center to trade the keys for her phone. They were dirty from searching the Lombards’ farm and sweaty from the hot sun and they still had a long walk back to the ship.

And now they had no idea where they were going next.

Elly wanted to scream but she settled for kicking a rock across the dusty path and cursing at the sky.

“What a waste of time,” she said.

Moonbyul was back with her phone in under a minute and when she returned, she was smiling.

“Rover dude won his basketball game,” she announced happily and nodded her chin down the trail. “We should start walking back. I think we all need a shower.”

“Agreed,” Sunny said. “Last one to the ship has to clean the kitchen after dinner.”

As they made the trek back to the Pandora, Elly hung back behind her friends and considered a few things.

The first was that she really hated nature. If it were up to her, she’d stay inside her ship where she never had to deal with dirt and bugs and grass stains and humidity.

The second was that if they didn’t somehow manage to find Jiyong, they were up shit creek without a paddle or a backup plan. They wouldn’t be able to afford any additional supplies or repairs and they would be completely sunk because of her hubris.

The third was that she was more than happy to be the last one back to the ship – after all her friends had done, cleaning the kitchen was quite literally the least that she could do in return.

“Hey, Byul,” Elly beckoned. “What would you say is the ship’s biggest issue?”

Moonbyul looked over her shoulder and exhaled.

“Out of all of them? Probably the leak in the fuel tank. But we got that fixed, didn’t we?”

Elly nodded.

It was a temporary fix, a Band-Aid solution to a much bigger problem, but it would probably keep them together a while longer. For the rest of the walk, Elly considered other potential professions. She didn’t have that many skills. She’d gone to flight school, after all, not college. She knew how to fly and that was about it.

There were some profitable jobs available for talented pilots – commercial space tours, interplanetary delivery services, search-and-rescue teams. Hell, she didn’t have a criminal record. If things got really bad, the Cosmos would probably hire her. The military was always looking for pilots.

But she wouldn’t be able to do any of that in the Pandora and she wouldn’t be able to do any of it alongside her best friends.

Once again, she reached down, her fingers tracing the gold watch in her pocket.

Would selling it even make that much of a difference anymore? One-hundred million dollars would be life-changing but how much could they do with a few thousand? Maybe they could get an apartment on Geum Haneul (or, more realistically, someplace much cheaper and much less scenic) and figure it out from there.

She honestly had no idea.

Sunny and Moonbyul had wandered pretty far ahead and so Elly picked up the pace and broke into a light jog. She could see the cliff they’d parked under and breathed a tiny sigh of relief. At the very least, she’d at least get to take a shower and rest her head.

A few paces ahead, Sunny and Moonbyul had stopped walking. The former had her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun, and the latter had her hands on her hips. They both looked lost.

“What’s wrong?” Elly called. “Tired of walking? Can’t make it the last hundred feet?” She didn’t blame them. She was getting a cramp in her side from all this walking. She needed to start working out again but they’d sold all their exercise equipment to fix their landing gear last winter.

Moonbyul turned to face her, swallowing hard as Elly got closer.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she said, her face suddenly pale despite the sunburn that should’ve been burning her cheeks. “The good news is that you don’t have to worry about that leak in the fuel tank anymore.”

“What?” Elly said.

As she got closer, though, she saw it and suddenly, her mouth went dry.

She saw the shadow cast by the cliff, darkening the spot where they’d left the Pandora. She saw the black puddle that stained the red dirt below, smelled the jet fuel as it spilled out and pooled into the soil. She saw the shattered glass, the twisted metal, the horrible, broken remains of her beautiful, beautiful ship. She saw the enormous spacecraft that had landed on top of hers, clean and strong and unscathed. She stared at the three women who had emerged from the superior ship and read the name painted on the side of the craft over and over and over again, trying to understand what she was seeing.

It didn’t make any sense.

“And the bad news,” Moonbyul sighed, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, “is that some monster-ship called the Unity has just crushed the Pandora to dust.”


	6. Chapter 6

Captain Ahn Elly rarely raised her voice but Solji found very quickly that, given the right circumstances, she could yell _very_ loudly and for a very long time.

Solji hadn’t even been in the cockpit for their crash landing. She’d been…preoccupied. Sooyoung had been at the helm. Sooyoung, the teenage science prodigy who’d gone to college _and_ flight school. Sooyoung, the smartest person Solji had even known. Sooyoung, the perfectly competent pilot who had flown solo hundreds of times.

Sooyoung who had managed to land the Unity right on top of some poor bastard’s ship.

Actually, it was bastards. Plural. Three poor bastards, one of whom was named Elly and was staring at the wreckage and screaming at the top of her lungs like she wanted to wake the dead Berm on passing comets.

They hadn’t quite made it to the introductions yet. Solji only knew the captain’s name because it was embroidered on her hoodie. There were two other girls with her, a brunette and a redhead, and neither were saying a word. They were just staring back at their captain who was shouting wordlessly into the void, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.

Solji cleared her throat and took a step forward so that she was standing awkwardly beside the brunette.

“Is she, uh, is she going to be okay?”

The brunette turned her head and looked Solji up and down, the look in her eyes a mixture of disbelief and mild contempt.

“No,” she said flatly. “I’m thinking probably not.”

“Has she ever screamed like this before?” the redhead asked, looking over her shoulder. The brunette shook her head.

“In five years,” the brunette said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Elly yell. Period.”

The redhead turned all the way around, her back now to her screaming friend, and glared at Solji.

“Good going,” she said. “You broke our ship _and_ you broke our captain.”

“Hey,” Hyerin barked up from where she stood a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest. “Solji wasn’t even driving, okay? It was Sooyoung. Sooyoung broke your ship and your captain.”

Beside her, Sooyoung gasped and grimaced like she’d been slapped. She was already pale and sweating, the feelings of guilt and shame and failure radiating off of her like a furnace.

“It was an accident!” she protested and Solji looked back at Hyerin and shook her head.

“Honey?” she said, trying not to give too much away with her tone. “Not helping.”

Hyerin scowled. She didn’t know these people and she didn’t like what they were implying. Sooyoung had fucked up, sure, but Solji hadn’t had a thing to do with it. Was she just supposed to sit idly by while strangers slandered her wife?

Elly was still screaming and it was making everyone, including her own friends, anxious. Yuri, who was the only other member besides Sooyoung and Hyerin who’d followed Solji out of the ship, was fighting the very physical urge to cover her ears with her hands when the brunette decided she’d had enough.

She walked up behind Elly and put her hands on her shoulders with all the gentleness and sincerity of someone who truly needed to comfort a friend in dire need of support.

“Elly,” she said sternly. “Please stop screaming before the farmers storm the bottom of this hill wielding hoes and rakes.”

The captain screamed a few more times and then her shouting slowly faded until it was nothing more than panicked, miserable whimpering under her breath. Solji’s ears rang at the sudden quiet but at least she could hear herself think again.

The brunette patted Elly’s back and then walked over to Solji, her eyes low and her movements reluctant. Solji could tell that this woman wasn’t normally in charge but with their captain currently in shock, she was taking the lead.

After a beat, the brunette held out her hand like she wasn’t sure if Solji would bite her.

“I’m Moonbyul,” she said, finally making eye contact. She nodded her chin to the redhead. “That’s Sunny. The loud one is Elly.”

Solji shook her hand.

“Heo Solji,” she said and then pointed to the three behind her. “The tall one is Sooyoung, my co-pilot. Hyerin is our doctor. She’s also my wife. Yuri is our tech analyst.” At the mention of her name, Yuri waved cheerfully like they’d all met casually at a bar on Geum Haneul. Sighing and shrugging, Solji added, “There’s three more on-board but they’re not as nosy.”

Moonbyul nodded. She looked beyond Solji, locked onto Sooyoung and walked until she closed the gap, angling her neck so that she could look the taller woman in the eye.

“Sooyoung,” she said coolly, and Solji noted the way her second-in-command swallowed anxiously. Sooyoung always had been a nervous person and something about Moonbyul was inherently intimidating. “You crushed our ship.”

Sooyoung’s gaze flickered to look at Solji, seeking guidance or permission, and when she was met with only a blank stare, she said, “It was an accident.”

Moonbyul cocked an eyebrow.

“Your behemoth squashed our ship like a bug and all you can say was that it was an accident?” she implored. “That’s the best you’ve got? Really?”

Behind them, Elly was muttering to herself, her fists opening and closing at random, her head shaking back and forth. Where Moonbyul looked mad, Sunny just look concerned. Soon, she was standing beside Elly, her hands covering her captain’s.

“It was parked in the shadow of the cliff,” Sooyoung stammered, speaking quickly. “I’ve made hundreds of smooth landings. It looked clear to me. I didn’t think anything of it, okay? It was an honest mistake. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to–” She trailed off, one hand on her forehead in despair and the other on her hip. Hyerin still looked irritated but, just like Sunny, Yuri looked compassionate and worried. She moved to stand beside her, hooking her arm around her waist.

“It was an accident,” Yuri said soothingly. “A genuine mistake. These things happen.”

“These things happen?” Moonbyul parroted. “Ships just accidentally get crushed to a million pieces? That just happens?”

Solji bit the inside of her cheek, trying to think of something to say. These things _didn’t_ happen, no. But somehow it _had_ and now she had to figure out how to handle it. What was the social custom when your co-pilot destroyed someone’s ship while you were in your cabin, playing doctor with your wife?

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Sooyoung said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “I-I-I don’t know how it happened. Maybe I was looking at another screen? I don’t know what I did wrong. I’ve done it a million times! I don’t think I did anything different. Your ship is so small but and the shadow covered it and I just–”

For the first time, Elly turned away from the wreckage and her gaze was so intense and so full of rage that it stopped Sooyoung dead in her tracks.

“It was a small ship,” she gritted out, “but it was a damn fine ship. It may have had cheap landing gear but it was a damn fine ship. It may have had a leak in the fuel tank but it was a _damn fine ship_.” She took a step forward and Sooyoung flinched. “It may have been a little busted up but it was _my_ goddamn ship and it was perfect, okay? And you wrecked it.”

Sooyoung blinked in response, her face regaining its color long enough to turn a deep shade of crimson.

“Wait,” she said. “Your ship still had a fuel tank? You don’t use an anti-matter converter? You still use rocket fuel?” She cocked her head to the side the way she did when she was deep in thought. “Huh, I had no idea people really still used fuel. That must’ve been a seriously old engine.”

Immediately, Elly’s face fell, erasing any trace of an expression that may have lingered a second before.

With clenched teeth and alarming softness, she said, “Okay. That does it. I’m going to beat your ass.”

She lunged forward and Sooyoung screamed, scrambling to hide behind Yuri who was already raising her hands defensively. But Moonbyul cut Elly off at the pass, wrapping her arms around Elly’s waist and effectively keeping her from pummeling Sooyoung into the ground.

“Okay!” Solji shouted over the commotion. “Sooyoung, no more talking, okay?” Still cowering, Sooyoung nodded and Yuri slowly lowered her hands. That was good. Solji didn’t think Yuri could actually win a fight against _anyone_ , not to mention someone as pissed off as Captain Elly. She focused on Sunny, thinking that the redhead might be her best bet for a rational conversation. “Are you girls here looking for Jiyong, too?”

“That’s none of your goddamned business,” Elly said, struggling against Moonbyul’s grip.

“Yes,” Sunny said, speaking over her captain for the sake of finding some semblance of peace. At this rate, they wouldn’t get anywhere and the seven of them would be standing on this muddy planet that smelled like manure for the next two days. “We followed a lead and came to check out some people who might’ve known them.”

Solji nodded.

“Us, too,” she said. “That’s why we’re here today. We’re all after the same here thing. I am really sorry about your ship. We will pay for the tow that’ll take you to the refueling station of your choice and we will pay to have your ship repaired. Okay?”

Sunny opened her mouth to speak but Elly, having freed herself from Moonbyul’s arms, fired first.

“No, not okay. Absolutely not okay. Do you have any idea how long it’ll take to repair the entire front half of our ship?”

“At least a few months,” Yuri interjected.

“You’re also not helping,” Solji said over her shoulder.

“The fact that we got here before you shows that we are better trackers than you,” Elly said, stepping closer to Solji. Moonbyul was close behind, ready to step in again if Elly looked like she was about to throw a punch. But Elly just wanted to get in Solji’s face. “Is that your game? You see that someone is doing better than you, that someone is closer to finding Jiyong, and you decide to take them out? You crush their ship and then put them out of commission for months so that _you_ can swoop in and take the glory? Really? Is that your plan, Captain Heo Solji?”

Elly’s tone was dripping with venom, her words cloaked in hatred and rage, but Solji didn’t react. She didn’t frown or recoil or have a fit. She just stared back at her challenger, a straight face and straight back.

“I think we’re at an impasse,” Solji said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “And I think that we’re all tired and hungry.” She took a casual, comfortable step back and turned to face the Unity, still parked atop the fuel-soaked wreckage of the Pandora. “Our chef, Yoona, has been cooking all day. I think we should go inside, have dinner, and talk this over. We are strong, smart women and I think we can come to a reasonable solution, don’t you?”

Sunny didn’t give Elly a chance to answer. She was hungry and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a decent meal. They weren’t going to decide anything standing outside, screaming at each other. They were all adults. Why not go inside and break bread while they talked it out?

“I think that’s a great idea,” she said, ignoring Elly’s wordless whine of protest.

“Excellent,” Solji said. “Hyerin, can you show these ladies inside?”

Swallowing the reasons that this was a bad idea, Hyerin nodded, gesturing welcomingly to the front of the ship.

“Come on, girls,” she said, hoping that everyone else couldn’t sense her hesitation from her voice. “I promise our hospitality is a lot better than Sooyoung’s flying.”

 

* * *

 

Elly hated rich people.

As they strolled from the main doors down the long, spacious hallways that eventually led into a clean, well-stocked mess hall, all Elly could think was that she really, _really_ hated rich people.

What did they do all day? People who didn’t need to worry about debt and repairs and fuel prices, what did they think about? People with co-pilots, people who didn’t need to stay glued to their seat, wrestling with manual controls, what did they do with all their free time?

This ship had a state-of-the-art kitchen. On the walk, they’d passed a gym with working equipment and something called a UV spa. The one wing they’d walked through was bigger than the entire Pandora and Elly was biting her tongue so hard that she was surprised she didn’t taste blood.

There were three other girls waiting in the mess hall, all three of them looking at Elly, Moonbyul and Sunny like they were expecting them. Solji had been lagging behind the rest of the group – maybe she’d sent out a group message summoning the rest of the team to the galley.

Hyerin gestured to the empty seats opposite of her three girls and, somewhat reluctantly, they sat down. There were trays of food on a high counter and beside that were two bottles of soda and a box of LifeForce powder. There were cabinets and coolers and something that looked like a deep freezer and Elly’s rumbling stomach gave her away. Ever since their bills had started piling up, the ladies of the Pandora had mostly been living on beef jerky, whole-wheat crackers and freeze-dried oranges from refueling station mini-marts. Whatever was in those trays smelled amazing but Elly’s pride didn’t want her to accept a meal from the people who’d killed her ship.

“Ladies,” Solji said, addressing the rest of her team. “We’re going to host the crew of the Pandora for dinner tonight.”

“We never have dinner guests,” said a young woman with dark hair and a grease-stained denim shirt. There was a knowing smirk on her face, like she already knew the answer, but still she asked, “What’s the occasion?”

“We got into a little fender-bender,” Solji said. “The least we can do is feed them.”

“That is the least you can do,” Elly mumbled and that made the brunette with the dirty shirt smile.

“This is Elly, Moonbyul and Sunny,” Solji said before pointing across the table and adding, “and that’s Solar, Wheein and Yoona.”

“Moonbyul, Sunny and Solar,” Hyerin said fondly, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. “Clearly, your parents had space aspirations for you kids.”

Moonbyul smirked.

“An astronaut by any other name would be as sweet,” she teased and the girl in the stained shirt, the one that Solji had introduced as Solar, smiled.

“You like Shakespeare?” she asked. Moonbyul licked her lips. It wasn’t wasted on her how pretty this girl was, even in dirty clothes, and she was hoping that her stare came across more friendly that predatory. This woman, Solar, had a perfect, bright smile and long, dark hair that fell loosely over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and warm and there was something about her that was just… enchanting. Charming. She was obviously stunning but there was an extra layer there that had Moonbyul’s head spinning.

“We go on a lot of long flights,” Moonbyul explained. “Sometimes it’s nice to sit and read the classics.”

Solar’s responding smile made Moonbyul’s heart flutter.

“Well, you girls must be hungry,” said Yoona, clapping her hands together as she rose to her feet. “You three like Korean beef?”

Regretfully, Moonbyul’s first thought that getting their ride smashed up would be more than worth it if it meant she’d get to eat some well-cooked Korean beef.

But she didn’t say it out loud.

Yoona gave them each a plate of beef and rice before asking what they’d like to drink and she didn’t sit down to join them until everyone had started eating.

Solji sat at the head of the table and Hyerin sat literally at her right hand. They’d known each other less than a half hour but Moonbyul couldn’t help but notice the way they looked at each other. It was kind of nice. Moonbyul couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her like that. There was something comforting about being in the presence of true love. It made everything seem a little better and brighter.

“Did you really have a leak in your fuel tank?” Solji asked when there was a break in the polite chitchat. Elly was scowling while she ate but at Solji’s question, Moonbyul thought he expression softened just the slightest bit.

“The Pandora had some issues, yes,” Elly said after taking a long sip of peach-mango LifeForce. “And one of those is issues is a slight leak in the gas tank.”

“What are some of the other issues?” Hyerin asked, sounding genuinely interested. Moonbyul understood that. Sometimes you spent so much time with your own crew that talking to other people felt like a rare and special privilege.

“Problems with the thrusters,” Sunny said, speaking with her mouth full. “Problems with the landing gear. Problems with the furnace. Problems with the lighting.”

“We haven’t had a functional missile system in, like, eight months,” Moonbyul continued, still keeping her eyes on Solar. “Our intercom system doesn’t work. We had to trash our rover a year and a half ago.”

“Almost all of our systems are manual now,” Elly added bitterly, hesitantly.

“We don’t even have an escape pod anymore,” Sunny snorted.

Solji gawked at them. From across the table. Sooyoung choked on her rice. Hyerin narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side as though Sunny had just started speaking Dutch.

“You don’t have an escape pod?” Yuri asked, her face twisted in confusion and concern. “What happens if something happens onboard and you need to abandon ship?”

Elly shrugged like it was a stupid question.

“We die.”

There was a pause.

“She’s succinct,” Solar said, leaning close to Wheein. “I like her.”

“Does your offer to pay for repairs still stand?” Moonbyul snorted, her mood having improved considerably now that her stomach was full of warm food. “You won’t be able to distinguish the damage you did from the crap that was already wrong with it.”

Solji’s smile was soft.

“I intend to pay to get your ship back up and running,” she said. “My father always taught me to be true to my word and make good on my promises. We made a mistake and we’ll fix it.”

“Not just by fixing our ship you won’t,” Elly said, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with the red cloth napkin she’d been giving.

“I don’t follow,” Solji said.

“Like I said before, repairs will take too long. It’ll completely knock us out of the race to find Jiyong and that is unacceptable. We need the money and we need it too badly to be sidelined for months while the rest of the ‘verse is making progress. That just isn’t fair. We shouldn’t be disqualified just because your co-pilot can’t see through shadows.”

Sooyoung raised her hand.

“I resent that,” she said.

Elly looked to her for just a second.

“Noted,” she said and then took another sip and continued. “My point is, Captain Solji, that just fixing our ship isn’t repaying what you owe. If it wasn’t for this little accident, we would be back in the sky and on our way to our next stop right now.”

That was only halfway true. They’d probably be in the sky but Elly had _no_ idea where they would’ve gone next. They’d come up empty on Cheoeum and they had no clear next step but goddamn it, they should’ve been confused and lost in their _own_ ship. It was the principle of the thing.

“Okay,” Solji said, leaning forward so that her elbows were on the table and she could join her hands together at her fingertips. “I hear you.” Her eyes were narrowed in earnest contemplation. This was a much more reasonable side of Elly. Maybe the food had helped clear through the haze of her shock. And at least she wasn’t screaming anymore. “How do you propose that we handled this?”

“I’m so glad you asked, Solji,” Elly said with a dark grin. “I do agree that you should pay to fix our ship.”

“Fair is fair,” Solji interjected, almost amused. Elly was feisty and quick-witted. She could certainly go tit-for-tat in a verbal dispute, something that Solji appreciated and respected. Solji wasn’t one who shied away from conflict and a little confrontation now and again was healthy outlet.

“But there’s no way that we’re sitting in some roach-infested motel while you’re out and about looking for Jiyong and winning millions of dollars,” she said. “That’s just not fair.”

Solji leaned forward, suddenly starting to catch on to where Elly was going.

“You’re not suggesting–”

“The only reasonable choice,” Elly continued, cutting Solji off, “is that we team up. The only thing that makes sense is if the Pandora joins the Unity and we work together to find Jiyong.”

The table erupted in a surprisingly quiet explosion of questions, comments and protests from both sides. The only person not fruitlessly interjecting their two cents was Hyerin, and that was because she recognized that this was a conversation between two captains. As much as they loved and respected their crews, it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought.

They were going to make this decision.

“And split the money?” Solji asked over the commotion.

“Fifty-fifty,” Elly nodded. “Fifty-million is almost as good as a hundred-million anyway.” The frantic, hushed debate had already died down, everyone shooting each other frenzied, confused glances across the long table. “And, of course, you still have to pay for my ship. Fair _is_ fair.”

Solji smiled. Maybe she’d like this girl after all.

“Okay,” she said, much to the shock of every other person in the room. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The whispering returned, quieter this time but somehow harsher and more aggressive, and Hyerin leaned back in her chair.

“Solji,” she said, her hand on her wife’s arm. “Sweetie, can I have a word?”

Solji nodded but when she stood, she gestured for Yuri to follow them.

“Yoona,” she said before turning to leave the room, “if you have dessert, now would be the time to serve it.”

Yoona lit up like she’d been waiting to hear those words all day.

“I hope you guys like chocolate cake,” she said brightly.

In the corridor, far enough away that their words wouldn’t carry to the galley, Hyerin stared up at her wife like she wasn’t entirely sure the last forty-five minutes had really happened.

Yuri’s presence was the only thing keeping Hyerin from launching into an expletive-laced spiel about why this was a bad idea. In front of the crew, in front of the kids, they had to be united. Always. Hyerin would never question Solji’s judgment in front of the team. It just wasn’t how it worked. When Hyerin voiced her opinions, it was as Solji’s wife, not as the Unity’s doctor.

Solji read her mind.

“Yuri doesn’t care,” she insisted and Hyerin thought her expression was too light for the situation. These circumstances called for something much more serious. “Say what you’re thinking.”

“Is this a good idea?” she asked, pulling back the intensity she was feeling. She’d save her real feelings for the next time they were behind closed doors. “We don’t even know these people.”

“I had Yuri run background checks while we were eating,” Solji said, nodding her chin to the tablet Yuri had suddenly produced from inside her jacket. “What’d you find out?”

“Boring stuff,” she said. “Where they went to school, what their parents do for a living, where they refuel. Moonbyul and Sunny don’t have records but Elly was arrested once a few years ago for something minor.”

“What was the charge?” Solji asked.

Yuri shrugged.

“It’ll take me a little longer to get her records but she isn’t flagged and she didn’t serve any time in prison so it wasn’t anything important.”

Solji turned back to Hyerin with a gesture that seemed to suggest that all of Hyerin’s worries should have dissipated with that knowledge.

“Solji, we can’t just adopt three strangers.”

“We don’t really have much of a choice,” she said. “The truth of the matter is Sooyoung fucked up. If Elly really wanted to, she could sue us. She could get us tied up with legal shit for the next six months and then what? How would we find Jiyong if we were stuck on Jeongbu, spending all of our time in court?”

“Elly doesn’t have the money to hire a lawyer,” Yuri said. She waved the tablet, indicating something on-screen. “Financial records. That ship hemorrhages money. Sooyoung might’ve done them a favor.”

“Hyerin, we have more than enough room and more than enough money to take on three new crew members.”

“Moonbyul is an engineer and Sunny is a tech analyst,” Yuri said. “You can never have enough hands on deck. Extra help means a more efficient ship and a more efficient ship means we find Jiyong and cash in.”

“And make half of what we wanted,” Hyerin said.

Solji smiled.

“Sooyoung can live without heated floors for another year,” she said. “Elly’s crew _did_ get here before us. Clearly they’ve got intel just as good as ours. And who knows how beneficial three pairs of fresh eyes could be!” Because Hyerin was pouting just slightly, Solji gave her a nudge and flashed her the smile that always got her out of trouble. “I know what I’m doing here.”

“Do you?” Hyerin countered. She knew she was being unnecessarily belligerent but she hadn’t been sure about this whole Jiyong thing to begin with. Then to take three strangers into their ship, into their home? She had to draw the line somewhere. She couldn’t stay quiet forever.

Still smiling as though she hadn’t a care in the world, Solji looked to Yuri and nodded back towards the kitchen.

“Keep digging,” she said, “and go get some cake.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Yuri said before disappearing down the hall and through the double doors that led to the galley.

“What happens if they’re dangerous?” Hyerin continued. “What if they’re plotting to murder us and take our nice, big luxury ship with working missiles and four escape pods?”

Having already deciding that she’d won the argument, Solji rested her hands softly on Hyerin’s hips and pushed her back up against the clean, white wall.

“Well, then, we throw them in space jail.”

Hyerin frowned. She was still pissed at Solji her captain but when Solji her wife was holding her like this, it was hard to feel anything but butterflies. And it was hard to look anywhere but her lips.

“We don’t have space jail,” she said.

Solji bit the inside of her cheek.

“We’ll turn Sooyoung’s room into space jail,” she said. “We’ll make her sleep in the gym. This is all her fault anyway.” Hyerin’s smirk was faint and begrudging but Solji kissed her anyway. “I saw that smile. You can never stay mad at me.” For the first time in their conversation, Solji’s tone turned serious. “Listen, I know this is a leap of faith but I need you to trust me, okay? I know it’s a lot but I’ve got a plan. It’ll all work out. Just trust me.”

Hyerin huffed and puffed and rolled her eyes but said, “I always trust you.” Despite her apprehension and all the holes she wanted to poke in this so-called plan, she just reached up and gently touched Solji’s cheek. “Just do me a favor and try not to get us killed.”

“Always the goal, sunshine,” Solji said and she punctuated it with a kiss to Hyerin’s lips. Then a kiss to her jaw. Then to her neck. Then to collarbone.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Hyerin said. “This is how we got into this mess.”

Solji snorted.

“Sooyoung probably would’ve crashed even if we were upstairs in the lab reading the Bible,” she teased. “But you’re right. We should probably get back in there and figure this thing out.” She took a deep breath and tried to get herself back into stoic captain mode.

She held out her hand and looked at Hyerin expectantly. In spite of everything, Hyerin didn’t hesitate.

They walked back into the galley with their fingers locked.

“Why don’t you girls go back to your ship,” Solji began, “and collect your things?”

“What’s left of our things, you mean,” Elly muttered.

Solji nodded.

“Gather what you can. I’m sure we can find you anything you’re missing.” She looked to Sooyoung. “Arrange for a tow so the Pandora can get back to Geum Haneul and repairs can start as soon as possible. When you’re all settled in, Moonbyul, Solar will show you to the engine room. You two can get acquainted.”

Moonbyul shot Solar a glance across the table and Sunny noticed the way Solar smiled, blushed and looked away.

“Oh, Jesus,” Sunny breathed to herself. “Here we go.”

“And Yuri, I trust you’ll take Sunny under your wing and introduce her to our computer systems.”

Yuri nodded and gave Sunny a salute.

“Good,” Solji said. She squeezed Hyerin’s hand. “Go get your stuff and I’ll show you each to your new rooms.”


	7. Chapter 7

The engine room was small but Amber didn’t need much space to work.

The engine itself took up something like two-thirds of the room and Amber was more or less content to make do with what she had. Of the Termite’s crew, she was definitely the least concerned about the size of the ship. Having grown up poor in a series of shoebox apartments in east Los Angeles, this small ship that could take them all over the universe in the blink of an eye was kind of like paradise to her.

She had the engine which, for the most part, performed beautifully. She had a whole case of tools and gadgets to help her do her job. She had a stack of sketchbooks next to a slightly out-of-date desktop computer. She had a cool handheld gaming system that helped her pass the time on long flights. She even had a mattress on the floor.

Part of her felt bad about the bed. The other three girls hated sharing that tiny dorm and she had a place where she could sneak away and have some peace and quiet. But it was practical. Amber had always been a night owl and this way, after a spending three-hours tinkering with the engine during one of her famous “midnight sessions” that everyone hated, she could crash out without waking her friends.

It was so nice to have some semblance of privacy that she didn’t even mind the itchy blanket or squeaking springs. In a world of constant compromise, this was entirely and unashamedly _hers_ and that meant everything to Amber.

She didn’t mind the cramped quarters but she did mind the heat. The engine room cooked her like an oven and she couldn’t exactly open a window and enjoy the autumn breeze. The heating-and-cooling systems were controlled by Hwasa who had direct access to them from her seat in the cockpit. Amber used her tablet to send Hwasa a quick message (with four emojis) begging for a little AC.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief when she heard three clicks and the smooth whoosh of cold air from the vents. It wouldn’t take too long for it to cool off now.

Near the chest of tools was the scratched up wall mirror from her college dorm room and she dared a peek, unsurprised to see the grease on her face and in her blonde hair. She always had grease on her somewhere – under her nails, on her pants, even behind her ears. It was all part of the job. Anyone who’d ever spent any extended time on a ship knew that there was always one crew member that would spend 98.7% of the time coated in grime and so nobody gave her a hard time about it.

Except…

“Why are you always so filthy?” Krystal asked, her short nails chipping the paint from the doorway. “Do you actually work on the engine or do you just roll around in the mess that it makes?”

Amber ignored her for a second, running her (mostly clean) fingers through her hair in an attempt to get it looking how she wanted.

“You think I look hot like this,” she said easily.

Krystal’s brow furrowed like she was annoyed but even now, she was staring at the way Amber’s tank top showed off muscles, tattoos and the few scars she bore from when engineering went wrong.

“What are you doing?” she asked, leaving the doorway so that she could poke around Amber’s desk.

“My job,” Amber counter when she was pleased with her hair. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Killing time,” Krystal said absently. Amber stepped carefully around the girl so that she could take her seat but Krystal didn’t seem to mind or even notice, opening one of Amber’s notebooks and eyeing a diagram like she had any idea what it was. “My shift doesn’t start for another hour and I’ve watched all the good movies loaded on the TV.”

Amber cocked an eyebrow.

“And you’re in my room because...?”

Tracing the diagram with her finger, Krystal looked over her shoulder, her eyes dragging deliberately down Amber’s body.

“Like I said,” she replied, “I have an hour to kill.”

She closed the notebook, turned on her heel and approached Amber’s computer chair, moving slowly. She got close enough to touch Amber’s thighs with her fingertips and then straddled her lap, not waiting for any sort of response or confirmation.

Amber swallowed hard.

“Is that all I’m good for?” she teased, her hands falling to rest on Krystal’s hips. “Killing time?”

Krystal shook her head.

“You’re good at keeping the engine from combusting, I guess,” she shrugged. “You’re also pretty okay at basketball.” Amber laughed and Krystal reached up to play with her hair, completely undoing all of Amber’s previous progress. “But, yeah, above all, you’re really good with your tongue and I don’t have to be at my desk for another fifty-seven minutes.” She looked back at the mattress in the corner and shrugged. “I’m even open to doing it on your weird ass floor-bed.”

“It’s not weird,” Amber said, feeling strangely defensive. “It’s cozy.”

Krystal rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, dusty floor-furniture is always super cozy,” she said, her fingers dropping from Amber’s hair so that they could grip her jaw instead. “Now stop talking and kiss me.”

Amber did as she was told.

She still didn’t know how any of this had happened. Because she and Krystal? They were opposites. Polar opposites. Night and day. Left and right. Fire and ice. Oil and water.

Krystal was a princess, a brat. She expected people to do what she said and pouted when she didn’t get her way. She was sarcastic, demanding, quick-to-anger and always needed to have the last word. Amber was humble, generous, awkward when she spoke and thankful for everything she had that she usually felt she didn’t deserve it. She was funny, but in an accidental sort of way, and she was very content to be alone, covered in grease and grime, working with her hands and singing along to the radio.

But you know what they said about opposites attracting.

Amber had ignored her feelings for three years. She’d completely accepted the fact that she could never be romantically involved with a co-worker, especially if that co-worker was the cold, brash techie who slept in the bunk above her.

But as cold as she was, Krystal was blisteringly hot and Amber spent so much of her time at the butt of Krstyal’s jokes that she actually started to enjoy the teasing. Eventually, though, it got old. Good-natured ribbing became irritating conflict and that soon elevated to full-on verbal assaults, and all because they wanted to fuck each other.

Then, one day, they did.

Amber couldn’t really remember how or why or when, just that a poorly-timed joke turned into a screaming match and a screaming match turned into a kiss and a kiss somehow turned into Amber fucking Krystal against the wall until she was screaming again for an entirely different reason.

And now life was confusing.

Amber and Krystal weren’t good at middle grounds and grey areas. If they weren’t screaming at each other and breaking things, they were having loud sex in the galaxy’s smallest on-board shower. They either hated each other’s guts or couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They didn’t know how to split the difference and they really didn’t know how to exist outside of those two extremes.

And they definitely, _definitely_ weren’t a couple.

If they were, they’d be the most dysfunctional couple in the ‘verse.

Did they have feelings for each other? Maybe. Amber wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell when the only time they had together was spent fighting or fucking. Maybe if they actually sat down and had a conversation. Or perhaps watched a movie together without getting naked. Even if they just played a board game or something.

But that didn’t seem likely.

Their interactions were almost always just like this one, with Krystal sitting on her lap and biting her neck and burning her up inside. Amber cursed and fumbled with the zipper on Krystal’s stupid, purple skinny jeans, wondering if they should stay in the chair or actually take it to her weird, dusty floor-bed.

“Don’t leave a mark,” Amber said, swatting at Krystal’s hand when she started pulling at the neck of her tank top. “We’re not teenagers.” Krystal made a face like Amber had just said something incredibly stupid and then her fingers locked tightly in blonde hair. She pulled Amber’s head back, a little rougher than she needed to, and latched onto her neck, sucking hard and guaranteeing a bruise. Amber sighed, grunted and rolled her eyes. “You irritate the shit out of me. Do you know that?”

Krystal smirked. She reached down, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing it towards the bed on the floor. She was wearing the black, lacy bra that always made Amber’s knees weak and the older girl couldn’t even pretend that she was angry.

“Yeah,” she said, “but you’ll get over it.”   

Krystal shifted her weight so that she was only straddling one of Amber’s thighs and leaned down to steal a kiss. All the times they’d done this, Amber couldn’t remember any kisses or touches that were sweet or tender. She figured that that was what happened when all of your sexual encounters came off the cusp of a violent confrontation.

Everything was rough and rushed, all teeth and nails and swearing. But Amber didn’t mind. She liked this. She liked what they were, whatever they were, and there was something incredibly sexy about the intense way they coexisted. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest “relationship” in the world but it certainly was a good time-killer while they were in the air.

As much as Amber loved to draw diagrams and take things apart, this was a lot more fun.

Amber reached around and cupped Krystal’s ass, pulling her forward to grind against her thigh. Krystal groaned but covered it with a laugh but before she could give her usual smart remark, Taeyeon’s voice came over the comm.

“We’re landing in ten minutes,” she announced, “and stopping for dinner. Get yourselves all cleaned up. I want barbecue.”

“Barbecue?” Hwasa’s voice chimed in. In the very back of her mind, Amber wondered where Hwasa had gone if she was no longer in the cockpit. “That’s boring.”

“Just put on nice pants and get ready to eat,” Taeyeon said.

When the comm was quiet again, Krystal sighed.

“The ‘verse’s biggest cockblocks,” she said, shaking her head as she climbed off of Amber’s lap. “The both of them.”

Amber shook her head, fixing her hair while she caught her breath.

“Technically,” she said, “can it really be considered a cockblock?” She stood up, angling her body towards the door so that she could head to the dorms to get changed into something less greasy. She didn’t think she had time to shower but there were baby wipes in the bathroom she could use to clean her face and arms. “I mean, if you really think about it –” Krystal grabbed her arm and tugged hard, pulling her back towards the desk and shoving her in the direction of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“We’ve got ten minutes,” she said, shrugging. She used Amber’s confusion against her, taking that half-second of hesitation to push her down onto the mattress. Amber pouted like she always did when she didn’t know what was going on and if Krystal was more willing to be vulnerable and affectionate, she would’ve bitten her bottom lip.

“So?”

Krystal rolled her eyes again, reaching around her back to unhook her bra. She let it drop to the floor and watched Amber’s eyes follow it down before staring back up at her with wide, wanting eyes.

“So we better make this quick.”

 

* * *

 

Taeyeon wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the planet of Jugeo but she’d only ever been there once or twice in the past. It was one of two planets in this particular solar system that people tended to compare to earth. All three were similar in size and atmosphere and all three’s main purpose was to house a whole bunch of people. Taeyeon actually owned property on Geungyo, the third bullet on that list, but she’d always spent more time in the air than she ever did at home.

But Jugeo was out of the way. It was the very first planet that you reached when you were coming in from the Banseong System and the Termite just never really went down that way. Their comings-and-goings were usually at the other end of the solar system, the Geum Haneul end, where they went through the Jesamgi System.

Their home solar system – the system ruled by the Cosmos government, the people so desperately seeking Kwon Jiyong – was a cluster of thirteen planets (and a handful of unregulated outlier rocks) aptly dubbed the Cosmos System. That included Geum Haneul, Cheoeum and an incredibly secure planet called Jeongbu that existed solely to serve as Cosmos headquarters.

Jeongbu was home to all government officials, no matter their rank or salary. If you were fortune enough to employed by the Cosmos, you relocated to Jeongbu. Beyond apartments and condominiums, Jeongbu also hosted all of the solar system’s major government buildings – courthouses, ambassadorial residences, the system’s treasury, and even four prisons.

Really, the only significant building _not_ located on Jeongbu was the super-max prison from which Jiyong had escaped. That was on an outlier rock that most Cosmos System residents referred to as the Confines.

Jeongbu’s high concentration of important buildings, though, didn’t mean that smaller, local governments had been completely eradicated. The Cosmos System was ruled by something like a democracy. The truly powerful lived on and operated from Jeongbu but planets like Cheoeum and Geum Haneul had their own small-time leaders and, subsequently, buildings that were used as town halls and petty holding cells.

But Jeongbu was the center of everything.

Naturally, it was defended like a fortress. There was an entire planet – Byeongsa – dedicated to training police and military forces but more than half of the system’s law enforcement was stationed on Jeongbu.

Taeyeon thought it was ironic. The Cosmos had placed the super-max prison on an outlier rock because they thought that it would’ve made it completely impenetrable. Had they actually kept Jiyong on Jeongbu, he _never_ would’ve been able to get off the planet.

Jeongbu wasn’t actually the centermost planet in the system but it was close enough. Besides, its position as _main_ planet had more to do with its power and significance than its actual astronomical location.

The Cosmos’ power, though, was hardly contained to one system. Cosmos sheriffs had been known to lurk and patrol systems in every direction, upholding their pledge to try and keep peace in the universe. Because the Cosmos System was so big and so strong, other systems accepted the help, some graciously and some reluctantly. A lot of these solar systems were fairly close together and the smaller ones, the ones with less manpower and less authority, were quietly grateful for the Cosmos. They were the older brothers who kept the little ones from getting knocked around by bullies on the playground.

But, like it had always been throughout history, sometimes the older brothers proved themselves to be the biggest bullies of all.

Jugeo wasn’t the Termite’s next real stop in finding Jiyong but Taeyeon’s stomach was growling and they didn’t have very much onboard in the ways of dinner. She figured they’d land, hit a restaurant, save money by going grocery shopping with full stomachs and then call it a night. They were having a hard time finding real, reputable leads and Taeyeon was sure that once they’d eaten and gotten a good night’s sleep, they’d be able to go about it with fresh eyes and a clear mind.

They were the best of the best. They’d found people that nobody ever dreamed would be seen again. How hard would it be to find _one_ guy? He couldn’t have gotten very far on his own. He’d had to have had serious help to bust out of the Confines and where there is help, there is a trail.

They’d find the trail and follow it right to Jiyong and then they’d have money to burn on the ship that they deserved.

But first? Barbecue.

As it tended to be on the more formal planets, landing took longer than Taeyeon would’ve liked. On small, rural planets, you could usually just pick a clear spot and float on down but with planets like these where there were heavy rules and regulations, there was a procedure that needed to be followed.

First you needed to notify the landing port that you were approaching. Once you were cleared, you needed to wait for a spot to open up on the runway. When you landed, you were met with notoriously high-strung employees who wanted to know who you were and why you’d landed on their planet.

As soon as they were confident that you weren’t a terrorist or a jerk who was going to try and steal shit from their landing port, they asked you more useful questions. Did you need fuel? Did your ship need maintenance? Did you need to park in the port overnight or were you just visiting for a few hours? Did you need hotel accommodations? Did you need any information about the planet’s tourist stops?

Taeyeon explained that they’d only be there for the night and she was waved through security and sent to Hangar 45-B, reserved for those parking for twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

“You sure I can’t talk you out of barbecue?” Amber said, wrapping her arm around Taeyeon’s slight shoulders as they departed from the port.

Taeyeon rolled her eyes. Amber smelled like sweat and her hair was messier than it had been before. Krystal was actually _smiling_ and had yet to make any snide comment about the accommodations. It didn’t actually take a rocket science to piece that one together.

Shrugging off Amber’s arm, Taeyeon asked, “Why? What do _you_ want?”

“Chinese,” Amber said.

“Burgers,” Krystal interjected.

“I’m sure they have burgers at the barbecue place,” Hwasa said. As was custom, she was a good two-paces ahead of them. For a girl with such short legs, she walked awfully fast. “And we just had Chinese last week.” She nodded her chin to Taeyeon. “Captain’s choice tonight.”

Taeyeon smirked.

Hwasa always kept the peace.

Maybe she was really destined to be a Cosmos sheriff.

The restaurant was called Crater’s Critters and though Taeyeon found all the pelts and animal skeletons on the walls to be a little crude, it had all five-star ratings online.

It wasn’t wildly busy and they were seated immediately at a table set for six. Unsurprisingly, Amber and Krystal sat together on one side of the table while Taeyeon and Hwasa sat on the other, judging them. This was how it always was, unless, of course, the girls went out to eat while Amber and Krystal were fighting. Then Krystal was glued to Taeyeon’s side like a kid while Amber preferred to cling to Hwasa.

“You were right, unnie,” Krystal said once her dark eyes were inside a laminated menu with a smiling cow on the cover. “They _do_ have burgers here. I think I’ll get one.” She smiled and flipped the pages to the dessert section and Taeyeon thought she might’ve heard the younger girl humming to herself.

Hwasa snorted and rolled her head so that she could shoot Taeyeon a look.

“Hear that?” she teased quietly. “I was right.”

Taeyeon rolled her eyes again.

Nothing like a recent orgasm to make Krystal agreeable and pleasant. (Actually, now that Taeyeon thought about it, it was probably the _only_ thing in the ‘verse that made Krystal agreeable and pleasant.)

Taeyeon had just gotten through the list the appetizers when someone at the bar shouted something and broke her attention. She looked up to see who it was and why they were yelling but her gaze landed on one of the TV screens instead.

It was a news broadcast about Jiyong.

For a split second, Taeyeon’s heart stopped, misunderstanding the report for news that some other crew had already found him and turned him in. When she realized that it was just a normal bulletin, she breathed a sigh of relief, but the knot of panic in her gut would take a minute or two to untangle.

She’d always been a nervous person. Hwasa had a clear head and a steady hand, two more things that made her the perfect co-pilot. Where Taeyeon could get all wrapped up in her own head and her own feelings, Hwasa lived soundly in reality and made decisions that were logical, no matter what emotional, extenuating circumstances might have been in place.

Onscreen, a woman in a grey suit was speaking. Beside her was a picture that Taeyeon knew well – Jiyong’s mugshot.

He wasn’t an unattractive man. Though it wasn’t much of a glamor shot, Taeyeon could make out nice lips and high cheekbones. His hair was orange but it looked faded and rusty like it was in need of a touch-up. She’d looked at this photo a lot, trying to memorize his face, and every time, she swore he was smirking. His expression wasn’t fearful nor was it one full of regret.

If anything, he looked smug. Proud.

Whatever he’d done (what the hell was considered to be _treason_ in this day and age anyway?), he wasn’t ashamed of it.

Taeyeon couldn’t hear the TV over the hustle and bustle of the restaurant but she could read the subtitles. The woman was speculating, trying to ballpark how many people could be looking for Jiyong at any given time. She called him the most wanted man in the ‘verse and then said that the number of freelancers actively seeking him could be anywhere from fifteen-hundred to fifteen-thousand.

Beside her, Hwasa laughed. Taeyeon hadn’t even noticed that Hwasa had been watching the screen.

“Fifteen-hundred to fifteen-thousand?” she said and then ran a careless hand through her blonde hair, ruffling it. “Seems needlessly vague, no?”

“It’s hard to narrow it down,” Taeyeon said, her eyes still scanning the closed captioning as the words scrolled across the bottom of the picture. “There’s no real way to know. They’re just trying to make it seem more dramatic than it is.”

Hwasa shrugged.

“Such is journalism,” she said. Her fingers traced a photo of something on the menu and she shouted to Amber, “Hey, if I order the sandwich that comes with macaroni and cheese, can I have some of your fries?” Amber didn’t respond. She and Krystal were in deep, giggly conversation behind Krystal’s menu. Hwasa rolled her eyes. “Amber, don’t ignore your elders.” Still, no response came. She rolled her eyes and flipped Amber off with both hands, though the younger girl didn’t notice or care. “Kids in love,” she said. “How gross.”

“Isn’t it crazy?” Taeyeon asked, her mind elsewhere.

She had been referring to something the reporter had said about this being the very first ‘verse-wide manhunt that history had ever seen. At the bar, a few men were watching the screen, talking and jeering as the reporter spoke. People at other tables were watching, too, and Taeyeon thought that a lot of them looked like crews. They were probably doing the exact same thing that they were – stopping to grab a bite before setting to the skies to try and getting back to trying to find Jiyong.

As far as she knew, everyone patron in the restaurant could’ve been on their way to follow up on some leads that they hoped would take them to the universe’s number one fugitive.

“Isn’t what crazy?” Hwasa asked. She ripped one side of her straw’s wrapper before blowing into the other, sending the paper flying into the back of Krystal’s menu. Then she stuck the straw inside her glass and took a long sip of iced tea.

“Can you ever remembering the Cosmos System being this united?” she continued thoughtfully. “In your entire lifetime, can you ever remember seeing so many planets on the same page like this?”

Hwasa shrugged.

“One could argue that the Cosmos System, and the ‘verse, have never been more alienated,” she countered. “We’re all competing, right? We’re _all_ looking for Jiyong so that we can be the first to claim that sweet bounty? Not to mention all the shit that’s been going on regarding the Berm. Everyone has an opinion on that.” She closed her menu and set it aside, crumpling up her discarded straw wrapper and placing it on top of her napkin. “Personally, I think we’re a galaxy divided.”

Taeyeon hadn’t considered that.

Once Jiyong’s picture was gone, his story over, the reporter had moved right into a piece about Berm preservation. Three farmers from Cheoeum had been arrested six months ago for killing a colony of Berm and their trial was set to begin on Jeongbu later that week. Even on Geungyo, the planet that she technically called home, a plot to blow up a nearby rock full of Berm had been thwarted by Cosmos sheriffs investigating what was considered to be domestic terrorism.

On the flipside, wherever Taeyeon went, there were people protesting. Space dwellers young and old circulated information in the form of pamphlets and lectures about why protecting the Berm should have been the galaxy’s number one priority. She had seen rallies and marches firsthand, people so passionate about protecting the ‘verse’s second species that they were willing to face criticism, abuse and sometimes even arrest.

There were dozens of other social issues that plagued the Cosmos System, everything from fuel prices to landing port security to on-ship hardware regulations. Everyone in the galaxy was opinionated, everyone fired up about _something_ and Taeyeon wondered if she was naïve for thinking that this manhunt for Jiyong was bringing people together.

“Maybe we are,” she said absently. She’d had another question for Hwasa, something about the morality (and inherent capitalism) surrounding fifteen-thousand people searching tirelessly for a man who wasn’t even a violent criminal, but her tablet vibrated in her bag.

“What’s that?” Hwasa asked.

Taeyeon plucked the tablet from her backpack and when she saw the screen, she sighed.

“Video call from Heechul,” she said. “What a delight.” She considered rejecting it but changed her mind almost immediately. She then considered answering it right there in the restaurant but, once again, second-guessed. Beyond the basic rudeness of taking a call in crowded room, she’d literally just assessed the other diners as potential competition. If she needed to give her new boss an update on the Termite’s progress, she’d need to do so someplace where the walls didn’t have their best listening-ears on. “I’ll take it outside.”

“Wait, order something,” Hwasa said, snatching up Taeyeon’s menu and forcing it at her. “Don’t skip dinner, you dummy. This was your night to choose.”

Faintly, Taeyeon smiled.

She pointed to the pulled-pork sandwich she’d been craving and then added, “You can have my cornbread.” Hwasa smiled, Taeyeon gave her shoulder a light shove and then disappeared out the front door, looking for somewhere safe to take the call.

That ended up being the ramshackle bathroom of a nearby mini-mart.

“Is this a bad time?” Heechul asked when he noticed the dingy tile and peeling wallpaper.

“For a quarter-of-a-billion dollars,” Taeyeon said, “any time is a good time.”

Heechul smirked.

His shirt wasn’t so ugly this time. It was a simple red tee with absolutely no distinguishing features or obnoxious patterns. His hair was combed more neatly, too, making him look a lot less senile than their initial meeting. She wondered how long that would last.

“Already counting the money?” he cooed, that malevolent glint in his eye sparkling like a cluster of stars. “I take it, then, that things are going well.”

Taeyeon shrugged, her teeth pinching at the inside of her cheek.

“We’re working on our next lead,” she said, trying to keep her tone confident and professional so that Heechul couldn’t figure out that they had no fucking idea what they were doing. “Once we pinpoint where we need to be, we will set out.”

That malevolent glint turned into a fully wicked twinkle and Taeyeon swallowed hard.

“You don’t know where to go from here, do you?” he asked, the singsong tone of voice making the knot in Taeyeon’s stomach tighten fiercely.

At least he didn’t sound angry. Taeyeon had expected him to sound angry. He seemed really desperate to find this guy and if the people he was paying to do the job couldn’t tell their asses from anti-matter, he was going to be mad. If anything, though, he sounded amused, almost charmed like he’d expected the conversation to go exactly this way.

“We are working on our next lead,” she repeated. “There’s a lot of information to sift through and a lot of it isn’t any good. You wouldn’t want us jumping the gun, now, would you?”

Heechul’s smile remained, his lips twisted into something that was meant to look happy but really just came across as thinly-veiled malice.

“Absolutely not,” he said, “which is why today, I come bearing gifts.”

Taeyeon eyebrow cocked. She was one-hundred percent sure that she would never understand this man.

“Gifts?”

“A lead,” he said cheerfully, clapping his hands. “A hint. A clue. A piece of the puzzle.” When Taeyeon stared back at him, wondering idly if he was a real person or a villain that had escaped from a children’s cartoon, he added, very clearly, “I’m going to save you some trouble and tell you where to go next, Captain Kim.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “You know where we need to go next?”

He nodded.

“I know many things, Taeyeon,” he said.

“If you know,” she began uneasily, “why don’t _you_ go? Aren’t you paying _us_ to do all the digging?”

He shook his head, that eerie smile sticking to his face like it had been glued there.

“I’m paying you to do the dirty work,” he said. “I can do some of my own digging. Look, do you want this tip or not?”

Shrugging, Taeyeon gestured with her free hand.

“By all means,” she said.

“There is a file in a government building,” he began.

“A computer file?”

“No,” he said. “Physical. Old school. This is a paper file. Manilla envelope, double spaced, black ink, the whole nine. The Cosmos wouldn’t risk putting this information online. It’s tangible and it’s in a retro, metal file cabinet on Jeongbu.”

Taeyeon stared back at him for at least ten seconds, completely silent, blinking as she processed this.

“You want us to go to Jeongbu?” she said.

He nodded.

“There’s a leak in the Cosmos,” he said. “Not a very big one. It’s not someone that’s got his hands on crucial, groundbreaking information. He’s not giving out nuclear secrets or anything like that but he does know where a document like this would be kept. I contacted him, worked my magic, and got the information.”

“You want us to go to Jeongbu?” Taeyeon repeated, barely listening.

Heechul ignored her.

“You find this building, you find this file cabinet, you find this file. Inside this folder, you will find crucial information about two men – Lee Seungri and Kang Daesung. They are two people who have worked incredibly closely with Jiyong and if you can find them, you will find yourself significantly closer to finding the man of the hour. You understand?”

Taeyeon was so quiet that she could hear a customer inside the mini-mart asking the employee if they stocked cherry LifeForce.

“You want us to go to _Jeongbu_ ,” she said, “the most heavily guarded planet in the entire universe and try to _steal_ a file?”

Heechul nodded.

“It won’t be as hard as it sounds,” he said. “My source, the leak, he’ll help you. His name is Taeyong. He’s not much, just a disloyal paper-pusher with medium-level security clearance. I emailed you his information.” He cocked his head to the side and licked his lips, looking downright entertained by Taeyeon’s reaction. “For a crew as talented a yours, little one, it’ll be a piece of cake.” He gave her a wink that made her body feel tense. “Sound like a plan?”

Taeyeon had never been one to grind her teeth but she was thinking now might be a good time to start.

“I’ll call you when we’ve got Jeongbu in our sights,” she said tersely. “Shouldn’t take more than a day to get there.”

Heechul clapped his hands again, pleased.

“Fantastic, baby,” he said, nearly laughing. “I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

The call disconnected and Taeyeon sighed so loudly that the people shopping heard her.

By the time she got back to Crater’s Critters, the food was on the table. Hwasa was already several bites into her meal but Krystal and Amber were nowhere to be seen.

“Where are the love-birds?” she asked.

With a mouthful of mac and cheese, Hwasa said, “In the bathroom, finishing what they started.” Immediately, Taeyeon realized that had been a stupid question. Hwasa nodded her chin at the tablet. “What did Heechul want?”

Taeyeon took the seat beside her friend, the sweet, tangy scent of barbecue sauce tickling her nose and settling with a deep rumble in her stomach.

“He wanted to give us some assistance,” she said. “He wanted to tell us where we should go next, actually.”

“What?” said Hwasa. “Seriously?”

Taeyeon just nodded.

She’d have to explain everything, not to mention open Heechul’s email, but first, she wanted to eat.

She lifted the sandwich to her lips and took a big bite. It was just as delicious as the internet promised and made her taste buds sing. She chewed slowly and carefully and once she swallowed, she dabbed at her cheeks with the corner of her napkin, wiping away the excess sauce.

Hwasa stared back at her impatiently and expectantly, and Taeyeon reached for her drink. She took a sip, suddenly wishing she’d ordered actual lemonade instead of just lemon water. She put her glass back down on the table and then asked, very simply, “You ever been to Jeongbu?”


	8. Chapter 8

Kim Hyoyeon didn’t like being told what to do and she wasn’t the type of person who ever let anything get in her way.

She hadn’t let her parent’s disapproval stop her from leaving Korea and going to space. She hadn’t let her sub-par grades in high school and college get in the way of her dreams of becoming a successful tech-analyst who traveled the universe. She didn’t let any Cosmos laws, customs or traditions interfere with her unique brand of personal freedom. She didn’t let anyone’s expectations or preconceived notions affect the type of person she was. She didn’t even let the fact that she didn’t have a pilot’s license stop her from flying the Juggernaut.

It wasn’t all that hard anyway.

The ship was so high-tech that it basically flew itself and after a few crash-courses with Hyuna (all of which were focused, of course, on how _not_ to crash), Hyoyeon was more than confident behind the wheel of the fancy ship.

Most of the time, Hyoyeon only flew if Hyuna needed a break. Hyuna was a talented pilot and she handled all of the long, complicated flights. But since they were only a two-woman crew, and since Hyuna couldn’t possibly stay awake forever, she’d taught Hyoyeon how to handle things.

Hyuna was asleep now, snoring away in her notoriously messy bunk while Hyoyeon floated patiently just outside of Jeongbu’s orbit. She had always been known as a woman with a plan and if they _did_ end up landing on Jeongbu and a bunch of stuffy Cosmos officials wanted to know what the fuck their ship had been doing hovering for so long, she’d turn on the waterworks and tell them that they’d been having engine trouble.

There had been a slight change in their original plans and Hyoyeon needed to confer with Hyuna before making any decisions. But she wasn’t about to bust in and wake her friend. It wasn’t an _emergency_ emergency and nothing would be severely impacted one way or the other if she were to wait a few hours.

Besides, Hyuna needed her sleep.

Unfortunately (or very fortunately depending on who you asked), Hyuna’s instincts transcended her own consciousness. She stepped into the cockpit, her hair a mess, Minnie Mouse pajama pants still hanging low on her hips, and said, “Why haven’t we landed?”

Hyoyeon looked over her shoulders, relieved to have backup but upset that Hyuna hadn’t gotten a full cycle of rest yet again. One of these days, she was bound to burn herself out, and then where would they be?

“Bit of a snag in the plans,” Hyoyeon said after a beat. “You know that file we’re after?”

Hyuna raised an eyebrow, deep lines of worry settling themselves on her forehead.

“What about it?” she asked reluctantly.

“Someone already snatched it.”

Hyuna’s face felt hot and she wondered if the flush of her cheeks was visible to Hyoyeon. She hoped not. She liked to keep up certain appearances around her friend. Her father always said that a captain had to remain stoic. Even if the ship was going down, they needed to look cool and collected.

“Who?” she asked. “When?”

“Don’t know who,” Hyoyeon said, her tone casual as though she was telling Hyuna the results of a basketball game. The pilot’s seat swiveled and she used her feet and hips to swing herself back and forth as she spoke, her arms folded comfortably behind her head. “When? Yesterday, I think. I’d say we just missed it. And before you ask how I know for sure, Luhan called me while you were asleep. That little dude knows _everything_.”

“No shit,” Hyuna said before sinking heavily into the seat opposite of Hyoyeon’s. “How did anyone outside of Jeongbu even know it existed?”

Hyoyeon rolled her eyes.

“Stupid question. The leak in the Cosmos doesn’t just drip on us, Hyuna. Taeyong has loose lips.”

Hyuna grunted.

With his big features, sharp chin and platinum blonde hair, Taeyong looked more like a cartoon character than a real person. Hyuna knew him way back when and she still had no idea how a kid that jittery and unreliable ever got a job at the Cosmos with mid-level security clearance. Generally, though, intergalactic screw-ups like this worked in Hyuna’s favor.

In this case, she and Hyoyeon intended to bribe him for a paper file that held information they needed to help them find Jiyong. Truthfully, Hyuna hadn’t even considered the possibility that other people knew about the file – or about Taeyong – and planned to do the same thing.

Who else would’ve known the source of the Cosmos leak? Who else had the know-how to find out about a tangible, off-line file? Who else could’ve connected those dots and gotten to Jeongbu before Hyoyeon and Hyuna did? Who else would have–?

The realization hit Hyuna like an asteroid.

“Kim _fucking_ Heechul,” she said bitterly and Hyoyeon cocked her head to the side.

“You think he’s behind this?” she asked, slowly beginning to understand the rare look of cold panic on Hyuna’s pretty face.

“Who else has the means the resources to get to Taeyong?”

Hyoyeon considered this.

“Fair enough,” she decided. “So what do we do now?”

Hyuna leaned back in her chair, her feet coming to rest on the dashboard and the fingers of both hands coming to form a pyramid over her stomach.

“Take us down.” She said, eyeing the blue-grey planet of Jeongbu on the monitor. “I think it’s time we pay that squirrely bastard Taeyong a friendly visit.”

 

* * *

 

While they waited in the bushes outside of Taeyong’s apartment building, all Hyuna could think about was Luhan.

If he hadn’t helped wipe her family records from the ‘verse net and change her name, she’d never, ever be allowed on Jeongbu without an invitation. If she’d gotten arrested or needed to serve jury duty, _maybe_. But otherwise? With all that her father had done? With the reputation that would have preceded her? With the Cosmos’ infamous paranoia? She wouldn’t even be able to get _close_ Jeongbu without sheriffs tailing her.

Before the girls even made it into Jeongbu’s orbit, their ship would be intercepted by pissed off patrolmen who wanted to know just what the hell she was doing near the galaxy’s capital.

But with her new name, her new personal ID and her new squeaky-clean record, she could come and go as she pleased, even if that meant paying a casual visit to Jeongbu to shake down a paper-pusher.

Next time she was on Geum Haneul, she’d have to buy Luhan a beer.

“As soon as all these downstairs lights are off,” Hyuna said, gesturing to a bottom row of well-lit windows, “we’ll make a break for it.”

As they’d just discussed it at-length an hour before, Hyoyeon knew the plan and, therefore, didn’t need reminding but Hyuna hated silence and always felt the need to break it somehow. Hyoyeon had always found that quirk to be strangely endearing.

“We’re not going to, like, kill him, are we?” Hyoyeon asked.

Hyuna shrugged.

“Probably not,” she said, blowing the hair out of her eyes, “but you should never say never, unnie.”

It wouldn’t be hard to get inside. Because Jeongbu was so heavily guarded by sheriffs and military personnel, a lot of homeowners (or, in this case, apartment-renters) dropped the ball on their own personal security. There were no surveillance cameras, no special locks on the doors, not even any motion-detection lights that would illuminate them when they stepped onto the path.

Hyuna had a crowbar in her backpack. All she’d have to do was wait until the rest of the tenants were asleep, walk up to Taeyong’s door and bust it open. As long as she kept it relatively quiet, they’d be in the clear.

It was after midnight. They were crouched in the courtyard of the Wang Jog apartment complex, perched patiently behind a shrub that hid them from view. With peeling paint and leaking gutters, it wasn’t one of the nicer complexes on Jeongbu. Hyuna figured these apartments housed the lower-level employees. Taeyong had decent enough security clearance (Hyuna was still breaking her brain trying to figure that one out) but he wasn’t a wildly important cog in the Cosmos machine. He probably didn’t make a whole lot of money (which was also probably why he was so willing to trade government secrets for cash-cards) and these crappy condos were the best he could do.

“Everyone’s asleep but Taeyong,” Hyoyeon said when all of the other apartments had gone dark.

“Work in the morning,” Hyuna said, her fingers idly tearing up a limp, brown leaf while they waited in the dirt.

In the back of her mind, she was still considering the fact that her new identity was the only reason she was on Jeongbu. It was hilariously ironic, the way they’d been so easily waved through Jeongbu’s landing port. They said they were visiting a family friend and parked the Juggernaut in a forty-eight-hour hangar. For some reason, the ridiculousness of it all was sticking to her mind like used chewing gum.

“Are we waiting for Taeyong to go to bed?” Hyoyeon asked.

Hyuna shook her head.

“As long as his neighbors are down, we’re fine.”

Hyoyeon nodded, standing up so that she could dust off her pants and stretch out her legs. She offered her hand to Hyuna and pulled her to her feet.

“Let’s get after it, then,” Hyoyeon said, gesturing to the second-story window that still glowed with soft, yellow light. “I’m hungry.”

As they made their way up the creaking, squeaking courtyard steps, Hyuna slipped the crowbar out of her bag. Politely, she offered it to Hyoyeon first.

“Care to do the honors?”

Hyoyeon shook her head.

“You’re the designated door-breaker, kitten,” Hyoyeon mused.

Taeyong was in apartment 2H. With the crowbar, it took Hyuna all of two seconds to bypass the lock, sending the door into the wall behind it with a small crash.

The apartment was just as slight as Hyuna expected. Taeyong was standing in the kitchen, clad in a black t-shirt and chili peppers boxer shorts, holding a bowl of cereal. When he saw the girls bust in, each of them looking about as friendly as a rabid dog, he dropped the bowl and stumbled away from the door.

“Hyuna!” he greeted hastily, taking large, fumbling steps backwards. “Hyoyeon! Hi. Hello. Okay! Wow. Uh, so you’re probably pissed, right?”

Because they hadn’t actually _broken_ the door down this time, Hyoyeon shut it behind them. It wouldn’t do them any good if Taeyong’s boyish bitching and whining woke the neighbors.

“You gave our file away, Taeyong,” Hyuna said. She dropped her backpack near the door and took long strides towards Taeyong, the crowbar still in her hand. Realistically, if she wanted to bust him up a little, she’d just use her fists but Taeyong didn’t need to know that. The rusted piece of metal gave her even more power than she already had, and Hyuna believed that one could never have too much power. “You knew we needed it, knew we were coming, knew we intended to pay you for it and you _gave it away_.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, raising his hands defensively. It hadn’t taken very much for them to intimidate him but Hyuna figured that that was a good thing. If anything, it would save them some time. “I’m very, very sorry. Something came up.”

“You mean someone named Kim Heechul offered you more money than we did,” Hyoyeon said, joining the conversation and stepping over Hyuna’s bag so that she, too, could advance on Taeyong. “You saw all that green and you decided to screw us.”

His silver-blonde hair was a mess and there were bleach stains on his t-shirt, probably a laundry mishap. Hyuna hadn’t seen Taeyong in two years but somehow, he looked younger than she remembered. For a second, she couldn’t believe he was old enough to work for the Cosmos. He certainly didn’t _look_ like a government employee.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to screw anyone,” he said, stammering as he stepped backwards into the living room. “Heechul is a very scary man and I just–”

“Oh, honey, you don’t even _know_ scary yet,” Hyoyeon said and no sooner had the words left her mouth than Taeyong took one step too far and tumbled ass-first over his own coffee table. He stared up at them, eyes wide, skin pale, and Hyuna shook her head.

“We’re not even going to need to slap him around,” she said, resting one hand on her forehead and the other hand on her hip. This kid was pathetic. All they’d done was walk towards him and he was already tripping and sweating, looking like he was about to wet himself right there on the floor. “He’s going to tell us everything we want to know.”

Hyoyeon shot Hyuna a look and then shook her head.

“I spent the last two hours hiding in a bush because of this asshole,” she said, closing the gap between her and the coffee table. “I want one shot at him.”

Taeyong looked up at Hyuna, his eyes pleading for mercy in hopes that she’d call off her goon, but Hyuna just nodded.

“As is your right, unnie,” she said quietly. “Do as you wish.”

Smiling, Hyoyeon leaned down, reached over the table, grabbed Taeyong by the front of his t-shirt and pulled him up just long enough to slap him across the face. He made a noise of surprise and then she let him go, dropping him back onto his ass.

“Proceed,” Hyoyeon said, satisfied.

“Tell us who you gave the file to,” Hyuna began sternly, “or I’m going to step outside and let Hyoyeon go full-fledged crazy on your skinny, skinny ass.”

Taeyong swallowed hard, gently touching the red mark forming on her cheek.

“Her name was Taeyeon,” he said slowly. “Kim Taeyeon. I think the ship was called the Flea or the Termite or something like that. She was very tiny and she had long, blonde hair. I swear I know nothing else about her.”

Hyuna and Hyoyeon exchanged curious glances.

“You didn’t give the file to Heechul?” Hyuna asked.

Taeyong shook his head, peeling himself off the floor so that he could take a seat on the low, patchy couch just behind him.

“Heechul called me a few days ago. I don’t know how he knew about the file but he offered me double what you did and told me that I’d deliver the file to a petite blonde girl at a café downtown.”

“You think Heechul’s outsourcing?” Hyoyeon asked.

Mulling it over, Hyuna set the crowbar down, crouching so that she was eye-level with Taeyong.

“What was inside that file?” she asked and when Taeyong began to protest, Hyoyeon took a step forward, effectively silencing him. “You’re really going to tell me you didn’t look inside?”

“Only to make sure the ID number was correct,” he swore, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I did not read the information inside. What good would that do? I made sure it was the right information and then I met the girl and got paid. That’s it. I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.” He glanced up at Hyoyeon. “And believe me, ladies, I really, really want to.”

Hyuna’s jaw was set tightly, her lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to contemplate their next move. Without that file, they were up a creek without a paddle. That information, whatever it was, was going to be the roadmap to their next stop. They needed it. Without it, they would fall behind in their tracking and lose Jiyong’s scent.

And that was unacceptable.

“Hyoyeon,” Hyuna said lowly, “can you bring me my bag please, unnie?” Hyoyeon nodded. “Taeyong, my twitchy, little friend, you have put us in a real pickle.”

“Noona, I already told you that I’m sorry,” he said and the honorific made Hyuna chuckle. “I didn’t mean–” Hyoyeon appeared back at Hyuna’s side and gave her the back and in an instant, Hyuna retrieved her favorite blaster from the front pocket. She didn’t miss the way Taeyong’s eyes widened impossibly further and he recoiled back into the couch cushions. “Oh, Jesus, I really don’t want to die in my lucky underwear.”

“You really need to give us a better answer than ‘I didn’t mean to screw you, noona,’ or you’re going to find yourself on the business-end of my friend Molly.” Smiling, Hyuna waved the blaster. “If you didn’t piece it together, this is my friend Molly.”

Taeyong swallowed hard, his hands gripping the cushions below him.

Hyoyeon cocked her head to the side.

“I’m going to slap him again,” she said, leaping forward.

“Okay, okay! Alright! Listen!” He was shielding his face with his hands but they wouldn’t do him any good against Hyoyeon _or_ Molly. “There’s one more file.”

Hyuna raised an eyebrow.

“Another file?”

“Yes!” he admitted. “There’s a copy, okay? Files like that, the important hard-copy files, they tend to have duplicates. A lot of them are housed on this old, docked ship a few miles north of here. It’s a really just an ancient ship that was used in an old battle. It’s memorialized now, kind of like a museum. There’s a storage facility where the engine used to be. The file should be there.”

“Should?” Hyoyeon countered.

Taeyong nodded.

“The information isn’t anywhere online but they use the file IDs to voucher the hard-copies. I double-checked after Heechul called me. It should be on the ship. It’s called the Entity. I can give you directions.”

Hyuna licked her lips, returning the blaster and the crowbar to her bag before slipping the backpack over her shoulders. She stood up and looked Hyoyeon in the eye, a whole conversation passing between them in just one look. The silence made Taeyong rightfully nervous and Hyoyeon moved to the kitchen to grab a pen and pad.

“We _will_ take the directions to the ship, Taeyong,” she said. Hyoyeon threw chucked the pen and paper at Taeyong’s chest. “And any other information you may have that will help us get that file.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “It’s a military ship. Even out of commission, it’s still guarded. You two thugs are going to stick out like a sore thumb.” Not liking being called a thug, Hyoyeon hurdled the coffee table and smacked him again. This time, Hyuna pulled her away before her friend could do any more damage.

While shoving a smirking Hyoyeon towards the door, Hyuna noticed something on the kitchen counter – the unmistakable outline of a cash-card underneath a dish rag.

She smiled as she yanked the towel away, relishing in the disappointed groan that came from the couch.

“Keep writing, kid,” she barked, palming the cash-card before handing it off to Hyoyeon.

“You’re not going to give me any, are you?” he asked. “Not even the money from our original deal?”

Pocketing the card, Hyoyeon snorted.

“That’s what you get,” Hyuna said, “for being such a goddamn scammer.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m getting real sick of hiding in shrubbery,” Hyoyeon said.

It was morning. After they’d left Taeyong’s, Hyuna sweet-talked a landing port employee into letting them sleep in the Juggernaut while it was still in the hangar instead of forcing them into a hotel. The less of a paper trail they left on Jeongbu, the better.

Now they were, once again, parked behind a bush, waiting. They were a few hundred feet from the Entity, far enough away and shrouded in enough shadows that random passersby wouldn’t glimpse them. Hyoyeon was sitting in the grass, eating one of the dozen power bars she’d thrown in Hyuna’s backpack before they’d left the ship. Hyuna wasn’t sure how long they’d be out there and Hyoyeon got mean when she got hungry. Hyuna was kneeling beside her, using her hands to hold open the bush so that she could watch the Entity with a keen eye.

She needed a plan and she didn’t have one.

The Entity was at least twice the size of the Juggernaut. There seemed to be three levels but since the engine room would’ve been on the bottom floor, Hyuna didn’t give much thought to the other two. They needed to get inside somehow and once they got in, they needed the freedom to roam. Hyoyeon’s research found that Taeyong was right – the Entity was a historical ship used in a great battle hundreds of years before and now it was something of a museum.  

But even if they could get inside under the ruse of being fascinated tourists or history students, they probably wouldn’t be given permission to wander freely. If the Entity didn’t have bona fide docents, they probably had low-ranking employees in charge of things like showing tourists around, especially if they had top-secret files lying around.

Hyuna wondered if they could split up somehow. Maybe if Hyoyeon could provide a big enough distraction, Hyuna could slip in the front door unnoticed. From there, perhaps she’d be able to sneak into a break room and steal someone’s clothes. She saw a lot of military uniforms and white lab coats. There was bound to be a spare outfit in her size that she could borrow.

She even considered the old cartoon trick of luring two people away, incapacitating them and stealing _their_ clothes. It always worked in kids’ movies but she doubted things would work quite as smoothly here on Jeongbu.

“I have no idea how we’re getting inside,” Hyuna admitted finally, closing the gap in the hedge so that she could sit back down and face Hyoyeon. “Even if we got in, we wouldn’t be able to snoop. This place is crawling with soldiers and scientists. We are neither.” Hyoyeon yawned and Hyuna cocked her head to the side. “Am I boring you?”

Wiping the peanut butter crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand, Hyoyeon rolled up her sleeve. On her right wrist was the fancy, high-tech smart-watch that she’d bought a year before at what she called a black market trade show. Hyoyeon had always been a talented hacker and programmer, and with this watch, she could do almost everything she could do on her computer when she was away from her office.

“You are not boring me,” she said, beginning to swipe her way to something Hyuna needed to see. When she found the correct screen, she peered up, admiring the way Hyuna stared back at her both blankly and expectantly. “Do you give up?”

“What?”

“Do you give up on thinking of ways to get inside?”

Hyuna paused but eventually said, “Yes, I give up. Tell me why you’re looking at me like you know all the galaxy’s secrets.”

Hyoyeon smirked.

“I’ve got a plan.”

Hyuna groaned the way she always did when she felt like Hyoyeon was playing her.

“And yet you let me sit here for two hours without mentioning it?” she complained. “Why?”

“Because my plan has a time limit,” she said. “Honestly, I was hoping you’d come up with something. This was really a last resort.” She angled her wrist so that Hyuna could see the screen but the younger girl had no idea what it was she was meant to be seeing. “I can _temporarily_ reassign our fingerprints so that when they scan us at the front desk, we will be registered as military officers from Byeongsa.”

Hyuna perked up, surprised and impressed.

“Well then what the hell are we doing sitting here, unnie?” She moved to stand up but Hyoyeon grabbed her arm and yanked her right back down.

“ _Temporarily_ is a very important word in that sentence, kitten.” She swiped to another screen and Hyuna nodded like she understood what it was. “It’s just a smokescreen. It’s incredibly likely that this ship, as old as it is, is fit with some really impressive security software. It’ll only take twenty minutes for their programs to work through my code and determine that we’re not who we say we are.”

“Will they know who we _actually_ are?” Hyuna asked.

Hyoyeon shook her head.

“No,” she said. “Not the way I’ve set it up. As long as we’re out of there before our time runs out, they might not even notice us at all. It’s complicated but we could get out of here completely undetected _if_ we can move fast enough.”

Hyuna chewed her bottom lip as she mulled it over.

“Any chance you have a blueprint or something that tells us where the engine room is?”

Hyoyeon smirked.

“Way ahead of you, kid.” She swiped one last time and finally, Hyuna understood what she was looking at – security footage of the hallway that led to the storage facility in question.

“I know where it is,” she said. “We can get inside and we can get to the engine room. From there, it’s just a matter of doing it quickly and not getting caught.” Hyoyeon lowered her head slightly so that she could look Hyuna in the eyes. She could usually tell what her friend was thinking by the emotion that was burning in her dark eyes and now, she saw determination.

A sly smile pulling at her lips, Hyuna said, “Then let’s go do this, unnie.”

 

* * *

 

Hyuna’s watch was _not_ an expensive piece of top-of-the-line space technology but it _did_ keep pretty good time and so as soon as their fingerprints were in the system, Hyuna set a timer for twenty minutes.

It was plain to see that this was an old ship. Boasting narrow hallways, wooden doorframes and plaster walls with chips in the paint, the ship looked more like an old house than a spacecraft. Newer models – _newer_ meaning within the last three or four hundred years – boasted Plexiglas and acrylic and combinations of elements that were proven to be endlessly strong.

It smelled stale, dusty. There were medals, plaques and framed photos on every wall, memorializing battles, generals and military achievements. Everything felt as old as it was. If they hadn’t needed to be so focused, Hyuna would have stopped and admired the décor. Her father had raised her with a profound respect and appreciation for the galaxy’s military.

But they were on a deadline.

Hyoyeon had hacked the Entity’s surveillance feed and was using her watch to determine which corridors were empty and which were not. The less people they encountered, the better. The more people that saw them, the bigger the chance that they’d be exposed for who and what they were.

The engine room was at the back of the ship. They passed several doors and Hyuna wondered in the back of her mind what each was. From the layout of the craft so far, she assumed they were mostly barracks.

“People in this next hallway,” Hyoyeon said quietly. “Act natural.”

Hyuna perked up.

“Wasn’t I already?”

When they turned the corner, they were met with two older men in dark green camouflage. One was bald and the other had grey hair and a salt-and-pepper beard.

“Morning, gentlemen,” Hyoyeon said, flashing her most charming smile.

Both men bowed their heads, the bald guy looking just a little awestruck as he passed by.

“That was natural?” Hyuna smirked.

Hyoyeon just shrugged.

“I’m very charming,” Hyoyeon said. “Naturally.” She looked back down at her watch and narrowed her eyes. “There’s a fork in the hallway up here. One side is closed for maintenance. It looks it’s being cleaned. The other will bring us past the cafeteria.”

“High-traffic area,” Hyuna noted.

“Lots of higher-ups, too,” Hyoyeon continued. “What’s the call, kitten?”

They approached the fork before Hyuna had given her orders.

Slapping a hand down on Hyoyeon’s shoulder, she said, “We’re going to have to get sneaky.”

The cafeteria was noisy. Hyuna assumed it was breakfast time. She could smell maple syrup and her stomach rumbled, a friendly reminder that she’d skipped her last two meals.

They were freestyling. On her watch, Hyoyeon could see a half-dozen decorated officers eating their pancakes at the table nearest to the open door. They just needed to make it past the cafeteria and down one more hallway and they’d be at the storage room. They’d figure out the rest when they got there.

Hyoyeon went first. She used that impressive charm to strike up a conversation with the first man who passed by, grabbing onto their arm and having them laughing within three steps. It seemed to easy and so natural that the men at the table near the door didn’t even look up. Hyoyeon patted the man on the shoulder and sent him on his merry way, shooting a challenging look at Hyuna before turning the corner.

Hyuna wasn’t half as charming as Hyoyeon and she looked at least twice as out of place. She wouldn’t be able to latch onto a kind stranger and she wasn’t cool and confident enough to just walk by without drawing attention to herself.

She was just about to double back and try her luck down the other hallway when she spotted a covered dessert cart.

Hyuna was suddenly very glad that Hyoyeon had already turned the corner because she wouldn’t want to see the look in her friend’s eyes as she took a deep breath and darted towards the cart with abandon. She only had a few seconds to pull this off. Dropping to a crouch, she grasped the sides of the cart and took off in an awkward, hasty crabwalk towards the corner.

With the dessert cart blocking her, the officers at the table couldn’t see her. When she actually got around the corner, though, she realized that someone _did_ see – Hyoyeon.

Laughing, Hyoyeon grabbed Hyuna’s arm and pulled her hurriedly towards the storage room.

“The mighty Kim Hyuna,” she teased. “That was completely and utterly ridiculous.”

“Let’s just hurry,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “We only have fifteen minutes and eleven seconds before they bust our fine asses.”

 

* * *

 

The engine had been fully removed from the engine room, transforming it instantly into just a normal room – but room filled to the brim with old fashioned filing cabinets.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Hyoyeon said, stopping in the doorway. Hyuna actually had to push her friend aside to get through and when she did, she saw the reason for her hesitance. “Where the fuck do we even begin?”

“Taeyong gave us the file ID number,” Hyuna said. “Are the cabinets labeled?”

Hyoyeon turned to the first cabinet on her left, a four-tier black cabinet with silver handles. She looked at the drawers first and then checked both sides and the back, her hands running smoothly across the metal.

“This one isn’t,” she declared. “Are the others?”

Hyuna could feel a headache forming behind her eyes.

“Only one way to find out,” she said bitterly.

It turned out that the cabinets were _not_ labeled, at least not in any conventional way that Hyuna had been expecting. She’d really had her heart set on something clear and numeric, a sign that read _Files 2500-3000_ taped to the front of a drawer. But no such luck.

If they _were_ arranged somehow, it wasn’t anything visible to an outsider. Hyuna figured that made sense. It was a security measure, a way to confuse and deter crooks and unwanted visitors. This wasn’t an insurance company with an alphabetized filing system for employee personal files – these were government secrets that needed protecting.

As clever as it was to have them hidden away on a historical ship, they needed another line of defense.

But these people hadn’t been counting on the combined powers of Kim Hyuna and Kim Hyoyeon.

The cabinets were not arranged numerically but they did house files sequentially. So while the cabinet with numbers 2500 through 3000 was not next to the cabinet that held 3001 through 3500, the files inside were actually in order rather than completely randomized.

It wasn’t the most impressive system but it sure was slowing them down. Hyuna and Hyoyeon were looking for file number 8125. Hyuna estimated that was somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand files in the engine room and so the girls got down to business, each taking a side of the of the room and pulling open drawers, hoping to see something starting with the number 81.

They moved as fast as their hands and eyes would let them, desperately wanting to get what they came for and get the hell off of Jeongbu. Hyuna was very, very aware of the time limit. She felt like she was being jolted with electricity with every second that ticked away on her wrist. She didn’t know _what_ exactly would happen when they ran out of time (and she didn’t think that it would happen at _exactly_ twenty minutes, either, and she wondered if it would all hit the fan at seventeen minutes or twenty-two minutes) but she didn’t really want to find out.

“What numbers do you have over there?” Hyuna shouted over the rustling of papers and the creak of rusty metal.

“How the fuck did I end up back in the threes?” Hyoyeon said miserably, ignoring Hyuna’s question but still managing to answer it. “This system is nonsensical.”

“Hang in there, unnie,” Hyuna said. She risked a look at her watch and actually gasped. “Okay, we’re down to five minutes.”

This time, Hyoyeon looked up.

“I hate to be dramatic,” she said, slamming the drawer on the cabinet full of threes, “but I hope you’re ready to fight your way out of here.”

In spite of the way she was sweating through her tank top, Hyuna smirked.

“You know I’m always ready for that,” she said.

They had just reached the two-minute mark when Hyoyeon slammed her fist down against the top of a beige filing cabinet with rust splotches.

“Son of a _fucking_ Berm,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

“Sweet merciful Christ,” Hyuna said, abandoning her side of the room to rush to Hyoyeon’s side. The older girl read all of the file numbers out-loud, one at a time, until she found 8125 and Hyuna had to stifle a squeal of joy.

It was just a manila folder in a dusty cabinet but it looked more like a bar of gold to Hyuna’s tired eyes.

“Is this the right information?” Hyoyeon asked, holding the folder open like a treasure chest. Hyuna shrugged. She genuinely had no idea what they were looking for and they didn’t have a lot of time to sit around and find out.

“I haven’t a clue,” she said, slipping her backpack off of her shoulders. “Do the file numbers match on every page?” Hyoyeon flipped through all of the sheets and nodded. “Then throw it in my bag and let’s get the _fuck_ out of here, unnie.” Having thought ahead the way she always did, Hyuna pulled a replacement file from her backpack and slipped it into the slot that once held file number 8125. It wasn’t much of a countermeasure but at least this way, if someone were casually browsing this cabinet, they wouldn’t notice that one was missing.

“How much time do we have?” Hyoyeon asked. “Enough to make it out of here?”

Hyuna bit the inside of her cheek.

“How fast can you run?” she asked.

They only made it three feet out of the engine room when an announcement came crackling over the intercom, a monotone voice caked with authority.

“General Choi and General Scott, please report to the first-floor clearance office. Level-orange security breach, grade-two protocol initiated.”

Hyuna stopped so quickly that her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum.

“Any idea what a grade-two protocol might entail?” she asked over her shoulder.

“We should probably start running,” Hyoyeon said.

And run they did.

This time, when they reached the fork in the two hallways, they took the one that _didn’t_ take them past the cafeteria. Maybe it was still being cleaned. Maybe the floors would be wet. Maybe they’d have to knock over a janitor. But Hyuna figured _not_ running by a room full of military personnel during a level-orange security breach would significantly decrease their chances of getting shot, and that seemed well worth the risk.

“You are lagging,” Hyuna said, pumping her arms as she jogged smoothly around a corner. “I’ll never leave a man behind but why are you lagging?” Hyoyeon was focusing more on her watch than on where she was going and Hyuna found herself reaching back to pull her to the side of the hall so that she didn’t run headfirst into an open door. “Unnie!”

Hyoyeon glanced up from her wrist just long enough to say, “They’re coming.”

Hyuna didn’t have time to register that. Hyoyeon had been watching the security feed, tracking their route and trying to determine the safest place to run. Two strong-looking men dressed in desert camouflage and armed with bo staffs were coming around the next bend and heading right towards them.

Staffs were better than blasters but Hyoyeon still wasn’t entirely ready for a fight.

Looking back at her watch, Hyoyeon reached ahead and grabbed Hyuna’s wrist, forcefully yanking her friend inside the nearest open room. That turned out to be a janitor’s closet. Hyoyeon must’ve read the map wrong because she’d been expecting the boiler room. Nevertheless, they had a few seconds to figure out what the hell they were doing next and that was a blessing.

“Do you, by chance, have any weapons on you?” Hyoyeon asked and Hyuna shook her head.

“I knew they had metal detectors,” she said. “Any blasters or blades would’ve tipped them off. I was lucky to get my bag in here.”

Flustered, Hyoyeon looked around. It was a standard, run-of-the-mill supply closet – a bunch of bleach bottles, some signs about wet floors, a dust pan, a broom.

The janitor must’ve taken his cart with him to clean another hallway, but Hyoyeon didn’t have time to think about that.

“We’re gonna have to get creative, kitten,” she said. Before Hyuna had a chance to ask what that meant, Hyoyeon grabbed the broom, ripped off the head, tossed it aside and broke the handle over her knee. She tossed one of the jagged pieces to Hyuna who caught it with a smirk on her face. “Do you remember the Yin-Yang formation?”

Hyuna snorted.

“Baby girl, I _taught_ _you_ the Yin-Yang formation.”

“Good,” Hyoyeon said. “Because that’s the only way we’re making it out of here without answering some uncomfortable questions about our intentions.”

They clanked their makeshift staffs together in a display of teamwork and ambition and then they threw open the door.

Hyoyeon remembered the names they’d heard over the loudspeaker – Generals Choi and Scott. She assumed the Asian man who threw the first punch was probably General Choi. Hyuna deflected it away with her half of the broomstick and dove backwards, landing steadily on both feet and assuming the position.

Hyuna was a better fighter than Hyoyeon but Hyoyeon had always been a fast learner. Early in their partnership, Hyuna had put Hyoyeon through all sorts of weapons and combat training so that she could protect herself out in the ‘verse. It had come in handy time and time again, Hyoyeon always proving herself.

Now, years later, Hyoyeon was well-versed in the art of fighting, though she couldn’t get anywhere close to Hyuna’s level. But that was the beauty of the Yin-Yang formation – it was meant to bring two very different fighters together to improve their power and accuracy by combining their skills.

They stood back-to-back, their right hands clenched into twin fists, extended in front of them. They held their portion of the broom in their left hand, close to their body and ready to strike. With only about two feet to work with, the impromptu broomstick weapons felt more like tonfa than any kind of staff but it would have to do.

They didn’t need to defeat an army. They just needed to get off the Entity.

General Choi took another swing with the staff and Hyuna blocked it with the broom, ducking so that he was forced to follow her and throw off his center of balance. While he was leaning forward, she went for his knees, planting the sole of her boot firmly between his shin and thigh and sending his left leg out from under him.

Hyoyeon had her hands full with General Scott who seemed to be a lot quicker on his feet than his friend. His lunges were smoother, cleaner. He whacked at Hyoyeon’s sides with his staff, trying to knock the wind out of her lungs. But when he leaned back too far, cocking the staff so that he could bring it down on her forehead and stun her, Hyoyeon took a page from Hyuna’s playbook and swept his legs.

She dropped her broomstick, dropped down into a split and propped herself up on both hands so that she could employ an old school breakdancing move, swinging her legs and taking him out at the ankles. It was sloppy and unprofessional but it worked and General Scott ended up on his back.

Behind them, Hyuna had brought her fight with General Choi to the ground. They were wrestling, sparring. He was bigger but she was faster and smarter. She ended up on top of him, both of their weapons having clattered to the linoleum below, and when he brought his legs up to try and get her in a triangle choke, she elbowed him dead in the nose.

Hyoyeon wasn’t a doctor and, therefore, didn’t know if she’d broken his nose but from the gushing blood and the muffled _crack_ , she figured it was a strong possibility. With incredible grace, Hyuna planted her hands on either side of his body and front-flipped over him, landing on one knee and sprawling to her feet. Without a moment’s hesitation, she snatched up his staff and took a cutting slice in Hyoyeon’s direction.

Hyoyeon gasped but realized instantly that Hyuna was aiming for General Scott who, in her hesitance, had gotten back to his feet and was getting ready to charge behind her. As soon as the bow struck his face, he was down for the count and Hyuna tossed the bow to the ground, no longer seeing any use for it.

Only sixty seconds had passed but now, both generals were on the ground, one of them was bleeding, and the girls were back on the run.

They weren’t jogging anymore – they were sprinting. It undoubtedly looked suspicious to anyone watching but they didn’t give a shit. They just had to get out the door.

Hyoyeon couldn’t hear any aggressive footsteps behind them but that didn’t mean they weren’t being chased. They just had to make it to the goddamn front door and the rest would be a cake walk. Once they were outside, once they had gotten out of this unfamiliar, enclosed space, they would be golden. They could hoof it back to the hangar and then they could get off of Jeongbu.

So far, Hyoyeon was really not a big fan of Jeongbu.

She recognized the trophy case coming up on their right. They were close. They were rapidly approaching the lobby.

“Slow down,” she huffed and Hyuna looked back at her like she’d just suggested they light themselves on fire. “Just trust me!”

Nodding once, Hyuna complied. By the time they reached the final corner that would lead them into the lobby, they’d slowed to a casual walk.

“Did you girls find everything okay?” the young woman behind the desk asked when she recognized them from check-in.

“Yeah, definitely,” Hyoyeon agreed. “And, hey, I don’t want to cause any trouble but I saw these two guys just kind of loitering by the offices. They were wearing heavy jackets and baseball caps. They’re probably harmless but I heard the announcement about the security breach and I just wanted to make sure they were on the up-and-up.” She flashed a beautiful smile and Hyuna had to fight a laugh.

The young girl looked troubled but said, “I’m sure it’s nothing but we’ll look into it. Thank you! Come back and visit us soon.”

As soon as they were outside, they bolted like their asses were on fire.

“You’re right,” Hyuna wheezed as they put distance between themselves and the Entity. “You _are_ really charming.” If she wasn’t so focused on running, Hyoyeon would’ve smiled. “And was that a breakdance move I saw earlier?”

Hyoyeon’s laugh was something of a choke and a chuckle.

“I knew all those expensive dance lessons would pay off someday,” she said. “Now stop talking and run.”

 

* * *

 

Although they were sweating profusely and gasping like out-of-shape kids in gym class, they didn’t have any trouble getting off of Jeongbu.

They retrieved their ship, thanked the attendants, gave them a huge tip (courtesy of Taeyong’s cash card) and got themselves off the planet before any kind of shit hit any kind of fan.

As soon as they were out of Jeongbu’s orbit and barreling safely to the other side of the galaxy, they both breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

“Kitten,” Hyoyeon said, reaching over to offer Hyuna a friendly fist-bump, “we are still damn good.”

Hyuna giggled. She was in the driver’s seat, combing through the contents of the file with sharp, focused eyes. They’d gone through a lot more than they’d bargained for to get this folder and Hyuna really hoped that it would be worth it.

“Baby girl,” she said, smiling a little when she felt the air conditioning kick on, “I’ve got a whole long list of people that you’re going to need to look into.”

Hyoyeon saluted.

“My specialty,” she said. “Who?”

“According to this,” Hyuna said, turning a page, “Lee Seungri is a person of interest. I’d start there.”

“You got it, boss,” she said, hopping out of her seat with the intention of retreating into her office to get to work. “I’ll have something for you by dinnertime.”

“But before you do that,” Hyuna said, turning in her seat, “I need you to get me absolutely everything you can on this blonde woman named Kim Taeyeon.” Knowingly, Hyoyeon smiled. She should’ve seen that request coming. As soon as Taeyong had mentioned her name, Hyoyeon made a mental note to run an extensive scan when they got back to the ship. “If she’s working for Heechul, I want to know her inside and out. I want to know who she is, what she does and how Heechul found her. I want to know exactly what she’s doing. If she gets online to watch a movie, I want to know about it.”

Dramatically, and because she felt her friend deserved all the respect in the world for the skills she displayed on a daily basis, Hyoyeon bowed.

“Give me an hour,” she said, “and I’ll tell you exactly where to find this Kim Taeyeon.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Elly hated the Unity.

She hated the white floors and the crimson molding. She hated how smoothly it flew without any sort of turbulence or tipping or power shortages. She hated the high-tech bedrooms with their flat screen media stations. She hated the ship’s seamless, easy-to-use intercom system and the way it carried over wirelessly to all their phones and tablets. She hated the on-board gym and the actually-pretty-cool-but-wildly-unnecessary observation deck and the rec room with all the videogames she secretly wanted to play. She even hated the fact that the Unity had enough escape pods to save every member of the crew in the event of a catastrophic emergency.

Surprisingly and almost inexplicably, the only thing that Elly _didn’t_ hate was the doctor. She actually kind of _liked_ Seo Hyerin and when Elly wasn’t working (that usually meant standing in the cockpit and telling Sooyoung that she was doing something wrong), she found herself in the infirmary.

She and Hyerin didn’t always talk much but the doctor truly didn’t seem to mind the company. Occasionally, Elly would ask questions, usually about whatever it was Hyerin was doing.

“What’s that thing for?” Elly had asked on the Pandora girls’ third day. She’d spent the first two days locked inside her new room, sulking about the loss of her ship and mourning the hundred-million dollars she swore she’d never get to see.

By day three, while Sunny and Moonbyul made friends and helped pull their weight, Elly explored the ship. When she got to the infirmary, Hyerin was standing over some lifelike, flesh-colored dummy wearing goofy-looking goggles that fully covered both eyes.

Though Hyerin very clearly couldn’t see her and, therefore, hadn’t seen her coming, she didn’t jump or appear frightened in any way.

“This is Terry,” she said matter-of-factly, “my SmartDummy.”

Elly considered that.

“Did you name him Terry or did he come like that?”

There were nondescript tools in Hyerin’s hand, a stylus and what looked like some sort of drill, and they were aimed inside of Terry’s chest.

“I named him Terry,” she said and then paused her ministrations. “To whom am I speaking?”

Elly was holding onto the doorframe, looking slightly pitiful with dirty hair and sad, tired eyes.

“Elly,” she answered meekly. “Captain of the once great Pandora.”

Gesturing with the stylus to pause her simulation, Hyerin lifted the goggles off of her head and set them aside.

“You hungry?” she asked. Elly was taken aback by the question but responded affirmatively anyway. For the first forty-eight hours, Elly had sustained herself on the crackers and jerky she’d taken from the charred and shattered remnants of the Pandora’s kitchen. Hyerin smiled and nodded her chin to the hallway. “Yoona makes a mean bowl of soup,” she said. “It’s the only mean thing she does. Let’s go bug her for some.”

It turned out Yoona _was_ extremely nice but Elly resented her on principle. She was another shining example of the Unity’s wealth and their easy, luxurious lifestyle, and Elly hated everything she represented. Some days, the Pandora girls couldn’t even afford a hot bowl of noodles but the Unity had their very own live-in chef.

How was that fair? It wasn’t. But she _did_ make good soup and so Elly sat and ate and bonded with Hyerin over several bowls of gamjatang.

Hyerin was nice but not in the sugary, overly-friendly way that Yoona was. Hyerin wasn’t bursting with sweetness or compliments. She wasn’t fake and she didn’t have to _try_. She was just… pleasant to be around.

She was witty. She had an ability to make a joke out of anything. Her sense of humor was dry, quick. She deadpanned and even as bad as things felt to Elly, she always found herself laughing when Hyerin was in the room.

When she wasn’t joking around, when Hyerin was working or studying or talking about medicine, she was a complete and utter professional. It was very clear to Elly that Hyerin loved what she did and took the furthering of her education extremely seriously. She had lot of resources at her disposal – her SmartDummy, her learning software, her tricked-out operating room – but she didn’t take any of it for granted. She completely lacked the sense of entitlement that Elly associated with other rich people, making Elly believe that Hyerin hadn’t always been wealthy.

When she spoke of anything – space, politics, movies, even Solji – she was articulate, almost poetic. She possessed a certain way with words and she knew how to make just about anything sound interesting. She and Elly liked the same music and the same shows, but they rooted for opposing hockey teams and supported different political parties, giving them room for intelligent debate.

When it came down to it, Elly was comfortable around Hyerin. But the rest of the time? She was very, very uncomfortable. She was on an unfamiliar ship with a bunch of strangers and for the first time in several years, she wasn’t the captain. She wasn’t the boss. She wasn’t even a co-pilot. She didn’t get to fly or help make big decisions and if she wasn’t with Hyerin, she mostly just wandered around.

For the first time in a long time, Elly was bored.

The Unity was on its way to Gangcheol, an industrial planet on the edge of the Cosmos System where Jiyong’s father had once owned property. On one of their first days together, Solji had gathered the teams, presented the information that Yuri had gathered from the universe’s dark-net and put it to a vote.

The decision to fly to Gangcheol had been unanimous but it didn’t make Elly feel any better about her lack of control. She’d gotten very used to being the captain, gotten very used to calling the shots, and now she was just along for the ride. She had never been a particularly bossy captain and she’d always asked Sunny and Moonbyul’s opinions before making big decisions but damn it all, Elly just liked being in charge.

Being the captain made her feel collected and steadied. Moonbyul like to joke that Elly was only happy when she was in control but Elly knew that it wasn’t a joke – it was the God’s honest truth.

Life in space – especially _her_ life – was tough. Trying to keep the Pandora alive and in the air while still making enough money to feed herself and her crew was challenging. Just trying to _pilot_ that damn ship without veering off into an asteroid belt or exploding spontaneously was a struggle.

(Frankly, and Elly wasn’t quite ready to admit this to herself, the loss of the Pandora might’ve been more of a blessing than a curse. For the last few months, just trying to sustain that ship had been killing her. Trying to find the funds to fix things was giving her anxiety. Because her appetite was gone, she’d been losing weight and she hadn’t been sleeping for more than a few hours before she’d wake up in a cold sweat about the fuel pump or the landing gear.)

Just knowing that she was in control of the situation lessened her woes and made her feel like things had the possibility of getting better.

But now Elly was a guest on a foreign ship and she felt like the walls were closing in on her.

One afternoon, still about two days from Gangcheol, when Hyerin was busy patching up their handywoman, Elly found herself exploring. She borrowed a fancy pedometer from the gym and started taking laps around the ship, peeking curiously into glass windows and open doors.

She’d gotten very good at spying.

Sunny and Moonbyul didn’t share her antisocial tendencies or her unnatural, unhealthy connection to the Pandora and, as such, they were actually working and making friends.

Sunny had taken an immediate liking to Yuri, the Unity’s tech analyst. Elly had seen them together in the kitchen and popped a squat outside the door so that she could observe. (Hyerin caught her lurking outside the doorframe and called her a creep but then moved on to do doctor things.) Sunny and Yuri had the exact same sense of humor and nearly indistinguishable personalities, though Yuri was a little louder and more outgoing than the redhead that Elly would describe as almost reserved.

Sunny had always been one to sit back and watch, waiting for her moment before she dropped a hilarious one-liner. She was endlessly sarcastic but she was subtle about it. Her humor was very dry but she also had a hidden fondness for puns.

Every time Elly saw Sunny and Yuri together, they were laughing.

That afternoon in the kitchen was no different. They were at a table, sharing a plate of fries, hunched over one of Yuri’s laptops and laughing like hyenas. Elly couldn’t really understand what it was they were talking or laughing about but it was bittersweet to watch. She was happy that Sunny was making friends but she was just a little bit jealous. Elly had gotten very used to having two best friends by her side twenty-four hours a day, and it sucked to feel alone while her more personable counterparts were branching out.

Powerful sleuth that she was, Elly didn’t miss the way that Yuri made goo-goo eyes at Yoona every time she managed to drag her gaze away from the screen. She guessed that Yuri didn’t mind the chef’s undying sweetness and from the loving way that Yoona stared back at her, she figured Yoona admired Yuri’s edge.

Elly had spent a lot of time on ships and in dorms. She was very familiar with the way people tended to hook up. Something about close quarters and stressful working conditions made smart, talented women gravitate to each other and fall in love. (Sometimes, if they were lucky, they’d just fall into bed – no commitment, no feelings, no worries.)

With all that experience under her belt, Elly had a knack for picking up when two people were more than just coworkers and on this ship, the chef and the tech analysist were doing a lot more than just trading recipes and computer tips.

Elly couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d hooked up with anybody and that might’ve made her just a little bit jealous, too.

Moonbyul, meanwhile, was trying to make a love connection with the Unity’s engineer.

That didn’t surprise Elly in the slightest. Even in her shock and awe following the Unity’s crash-landing on their ship, Elly had noticed the way Moonbyul was looking at Solar. The dark-haired engineer was exactly Moonbyul’s type and even then, Elly idly wondered how long it would take Moonbyul to actually make a move.

She didn’t see Moonbyul and Solar as much as she saw Sunny and Yuri. She figured that Moonbyul and Solar spent all their time in the comfort and privacy of the engine room, either tinkering with small machines or doing something else entirely.

Elly didn’t know and Elly didn’t care.

Of the three of them, Moonbyul was definitely the most extroverted and the most charming. She’d never had any trouble getting people wrapped around her finger and the girls of the Unity were no exception. They all loved her and it turned Elly into a pouty, petulant, jealous child because she loved Moonbyul more.

But at the end of the day, Elly thought she’d found a true friend in Hyerin and that was one silver lining in the dark cloud that was her life. (And that was about as optimistic as Captain Ahn Elly could make herself be at this particular venture of her life.)

And on that afternoon, still two days from their destination, Elly’s tablet chimed as she passed by the rec room. She saw an incoming call from Solji, saw that her location was, of course, the cockpit and begrudgingly accepted the intercom request.

“What’s up?” she asked, faking amicability.

“Captain,” Solji greeted generously. “Can you come up to the cockpit for a minute? Sooyoung and I need your help with something.”

“Is this a pity offer?” Elly asked, turning on her heel so that she could head back in the other direction. The rec room and the cockpit were on opposite sides of the ship, meaning the number on Elly’s pedometer was going to keep growing. “You feel bad that I’m sulking around your ship so you’re going to throw me a bone?”

In the cockpit, Solji snorted.

“No,” she said. “Sooyoung and I need a tiebreaker. We’ll explain more when you get up here, okay?”

Though she couldn’t see her, Elly nodded and disconnected the call.

Even if it _was_ a pity offer, it felt nice to be needed.

When she got to the cockpit a few minutes later, Solji and Sooyoung were in their usual seats, the former leaning with her hands wrapped around a panel of the dashboard and the latter sitting with her long legs folded beneath her.

“You rang?” Elly prompted and Solji smiled when she saw her, gesturing with her hand for Elly to come closer and join her at the panel.

“We need a captain’s opinion,” she said and then glanced at Sooyoung. “Isn’t it nice to have a third pilot onboard? Finally, someone to settle all our arguments.”

Sooyoung didn’t seem impressed, though it was possible she was just still afraid of Elly after all the shouting that had happened at their first meeting.

Elly stepped forward and looked out the front windows of the cockpit, her eyes moving through the windshield to gaze out at open space. Though the screens, panels, buttons and windows of the Unity’s cockpit were set up very differently than those of the Pandora, this was still Elly’s favorite view. She loved the way the bright, powerful technology of the ship’s dashboard contrasted the dark, beautiful totality of deep space.

“What’s happening?” she asked, pulling her eyes away from the galaxy long enough to remember why she was there.

“A sizable comet smashed into the side of small planet,” Solji explained. “Both of them splintered into a million pieces of metal and space rock and now there’s a mess of debris right in our path. We could go through it, risk getting a little dinged up, or we could go around it. Going around it will put us behind at least half a day but, since we don’t know how big these comet pieces are, going through it might damage the ship.” She nodded to Sooyoung as if reminding Elly that she was there, too, and then said, “What would you do?”

“I’d go around it,” Elly said, instinctually moving closer to the dashboard to trace a light finger over one of the buttons. “Sure, you’ll have to eat that half-day but if you go through it and a watermelon-sized asteroid rips off a booster nozzle?” She shook her head, clicking her tongue. “Any big repair will bench you for a lot longer than that.” Solji was staring back at her with intense eyes and Elly shrunk slightly beneath her gaze. She shrugged her slender shoulders and said, “As a general rule, I like to play it safe. But it’s your ship, lady. That makes it your call.”

Solji stared at her for a few more seconds, nodding as she considered Elly’s words, and then she smiled.

“See, Sooyoung?” she said, leaning around Elly to glance at her copilot. “She sided with you. Told you she didn’t hate you.”

“That’s not _exactly_ what I said,” Elly murmured. “But, in this very specific instance, yes, Sooyoung is correct. Go around the rocks and save yourself the trouble. Use the extra half-day to do some more research.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Solji said, offering Elly a respectful bow of her head. “Sooyoung, please work your magic and take us around the rock storm. I’m gonna check in with the other girls.” Sooyoung just nodded, inching up to the edge of her seat so that she could start programming the new orders. Solji pressed the green call-button at the edge of the dashboard, waited for the resounding beep, and then said, “How are we doing, cyborgs?”

Elly recognized Sunny’s laugh.

“Not cyborgs,” she corrected. “Just wildly talented hackers.”

“Sunny is better than I am,” Yuri conceded playfully and Elly rolled her eyes, remembering that day in the kitchen. “We’ve got something exciting to share but we need a little while longer to iron it all out.”

“Call us back when you’ve got something concrete,” she said, “and keep up the good work.” Solji pressed a button on-screen and then hit the call-button once more. “And how are my engineers?”

“Extremely attractive,” Moonbyul sang confidently. “Even if we’re covered in grease.”

“Making any progress?” Solji asked.

“Mostly just making a mess,” Moonbyul continued. “Solar is trying to help me make sense of this behemoth of an engine. I’m pretty sure your engine alone is bigger than my entire ship. A lot nicer, too.”

Loudly and dramatically, Elly cleared her throat.

Smirking, Solji said, “Yeah? Your captain is here with me and I don’t think she’d agree.”

After a beat, Moonbyul said, “Anyway, Solar is an excellent teacher and I’m learning a lot.”

Solji laughed.

“Is that true, Solar? Are you an excellent teacher?”

Giggles were heard from the engine room and then Solar replied, “I’m doing my best. Moonbyul is…” More laughs and whispers could be heard as Solar’s voice trailed off and Solji shot Elly a curious glance. “Moonbyul is a very good student. She’s a fast learner. Very talented.”

Elly snorted.

Knowing Moonbyul, she’d probably gotten to second base by now. That in itself was one of her talents.

“Okay,” Solji said, dragging the word out into several syllables. “Keep me posted, I guess. I’ll check in later.”

“Roger that,” Solar said, her tone light and airy as she disconnected the call. Moonbyul’s hands were on her shoulders, a massage that had started before Solji called down, and Solar swatted her away, still laughing. “This is very unprofessional, ma’am,” she said but was completely unable to feign any sort of anger or authority. “You need to stop.”

“You were very tense,” Moonbyul said. “All that back-breaking labor is breaking your back, unnie. I’m looking out for you.” Still, Moonbyul released her shoulders, leaving Solar’s desk to go look at a diagnostics manual on one of the other tables. “Hey, which brand of air-drill do you use?”

“I use a Blair-600,” Solar said. She was sitting in her desk chair, a red, leather thing on wheels that had all sorts of levels for height and comfort adjustments. She’d been jotting down measurements in a notebook when Solji called and once she finished, she put down her pen and spun to face Moonbyul. She tucked her arms comfortably behind her head and stared back at the younger engineer, her eyes questioning. “Why?”

Moonbyul shrugged, hoisting herself up so that she could sit on the table and let her legs swing.

“Just wondering,” she said. “When we find Jiyong and cash in, I want to buy new tools. I had a decent tool kit but we needed the money and I pawned it. Then I had my crappy tool kit but your friend Sooyoung squashed my engine room and now I have no tool kit.” It wasn’t meant to be an especially funny story but Solar chuckled and that brought a smug smile to Moonbyul’s lips. Having not been able to spend much time playing the field lately, Moonbyul was out of practice but it was good to know she could still make a pretty girl laugh. “You seem to have good taste. I trust your judgment.”

“The Blair-600 is lightweight and powerful,” Solar said, chewing on her bottom lip as she swung back and forth in her chair. She was clad in a pink sweater and tight, oil-stained jeans, her dark hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. Her beauty was very simple and very obvious and it made Moonbyul’s heart race. The way she was sitting now, with her legs crossed and her arms behind her head, she looked graceful and soft. She was very feminine and very small and Moonbyul loved the way it contrasted with the dirt, grease, grime and metal of the drafty engine room. “I think you get the most bang for your buck with the Blair but a lot of people prefer the Enzo model.”

“Why?” Moonbyul asked. She didn’t really care. She already knew the answer. With all the repairs that the Pandora had needed in recent months, she’d had a lot of time to sit around refueling stations. She used that time to research tools. She knew the Blair-600 was more powerful but the Enzo was built to last. The battery life was better and it didn’t break screws like the Blair could. She just wanted to hear Solar talk.

Unfortunately, the older engineer saw right through her.

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?” she teased but Moonbyul only shrugged.

“I like to get second opinions on things,” she said.

Solar tried to hide her smile and she stared back at Moonbyul like she knew everything she was thinking. That didn’t bother Moonbyul. If anything, she would’ve _wanted_ Solar to read her mind. That might make things between them happen quicker. There had been a connection, a fire, a chemistry between them ever since that first day in the kitchen. The more time they spent together, the stronger that spark became. Moonbyul could feel it and she knew that Solar could feel it, too.

She just wasn’t sure if Solar was ready to make that next step.

But Moon Byulyi was a patient woman and so she wasn’t all that worried about it. She could sit around, graciously awaiting the inevitable for as long as Solar needed.

“So you think we’ll find Jiyong, then?” Solar asked, changing the way that she was sitting so her hands were folded in her lap. “Since you’re already counting our winnings?”

Smirking arrogantly, Moonbyul shrugged again.

“I think the odds are in our favor,” she said. “I mean, I was already pretty confident that we’d find him when it was just me, Sunny and Elly. Now that we have a whole extra army on our side? Seems kind of inevitable.” She hopped off the table and walked back towards Solar’s desk, each step purposeful and alluring. She wanted to get Solar’s attention and it was working. “That’s the thing about inevitabilities,” she continued smoothly. “When you realize something is truly meant to happen, there’s really no stopping it.” She dropped to a crouch under the guise of getting closer to Solar’s notes but really she was just trying to get closer to Solar. She rested her arms on the desktop and her chin on her arms. “You forgot to mark the diameter of the alternator. Rookie mistake, unnie.”

Swallowing hard and grabbing the pen to correct herself, Solar said, “Right. Good catch.”

Nodding, Moonbyul pulled herself back to her feet, casually planting her hands on Solar’s knees as she did. It was a very soft, very innocent, very calculated move that had Solar biting the inside of her cheek and glaring up at her with accusing eyes.

“You know what else?” Moonbyul said, leaning against the edge of the desk and locking onto Solar’s gaze. “About inevitabilities?” She looked at Solar expectantly but the older girl didn’t say anything. “Once something is meant to happen, it’s all set in stone. Nothing can get in the way. Nothing can stop it. Stuff like that happens in space sometimes. I mean, you’d have to ask Elly or Solji about it but when a flaming comet is heading your way, there’s not much you can do about it, right? If it’s gonna hit you, it’s gonna hit you.”

“Unless you have a missile,” Solar said lightly.

“Do you _have_ a missile?” Moonbyul countered, leaning just a little closer with narrowing eyes.

Cheeks growing pink, Solar said, “I think there’s one around here somewhere.”

Moonbyul chuckled and when she moved in just the slightest bit more, nothing but the worst intentions swimming in her head, Solar cleared her throat and jumped away, reaching for her toolbox on the other side of the desk.

“What do you have in the way of scales?” she asked, her words rushed and hasty. “It’s important to, you know, weigh things. It’s important to have an accurate scale. Good to know how much things weigh.” She pulled out a handful of tools, most of them grimy, some of them slipping from her grip and hitting the floor with a loud, metallic clatter. Immediately embarrassed and with cheeks the color of ripe cherries, she covered her face with both hands.

“I think I’m good on scales,” Moonbyul murmured, reaching through the space between them to tuck a piece of dark hair behind Solar’s ear. “But it’s cute that you care.”

“I _don’t_ care,” Solar retorted, dropping her hands back to the desk and sitting up straighter in her chair. The grease from the tools had gotten onto her hands and now a thick, black smudge was smeared across her left cheek. Moonbyul laughed out loud and Solar grimaced, halfway flustered. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” Moonbyul said, “have grease on your face.” She dropped her hands down to the armrests and jerked the chair so that they were face-to-face, eliciting a squeak of surprise from Solar. Slowly, smoothly, Moonbyul licked her thumb and leaned in close, gently wiping the grime for Solar’s skin. “You’re very hot when you’re dirty,” she continued quietly, “but I like you a lot better when you’re clean.”

Solar swallowed hard, her eyes falling to Moonbyul’s lips. She felt magnetized, like she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to, like this was the only thing in the world worth looking at. She couldn’t deny the draw she felt towards Moonbyul, couldn’t swallow the complicated feelings that swam in her head and her chest when they were alone in the engine room.

They were supposed to be _working_ together, two gifted minds collaborating to make the Unity’s engine stronger, but when they were alone, tools and gears were the last things on Solar’s mind.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened.

When Sooyoung the brilliant bonehead crushed the Pandora, Solar never could’ve imagined this outcome. She never expected to be sharing a workspace with a beautiful, talented, _arrogant_ woman and she certainly didn’t think she’d be getting hearts in her eyes after only a week together.

But here they were, together again, Moonbyul leaning over Solar and gazing down at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the entire universe. Solar couldn’t tell if she was the one moving or if it was Moonbyul but before she could figure it out, their lips were millimeters apart and Solar felt like she’d float up, up and away, right out of the ship and into the cold depths of space if something didn’t fucking _happen_ already.

But before it could, there was a beep. It sounded like it was lightyears away but it was actually right there on the desk, coming from Solar’s work tablet that was still linked into the intercom system.

“Done!” Yuri’s chipper voice bellowed from the speaker and Solar leapt back, wheeling her chair away from Moonbyul so hastily that she almost flipped it. “We did it. We have important things to share. Who’s ready to hear the secrets of the universe?”

“I am!” Solar shouted towards the tablet. “I am! I’ll be right up!”

“We can just do this over a conference call,” Solji said. “We don’t need you to–”

But Solar was already out the door.

Moonbyul laughed as she pushed Solar’s chair back under her desk and picked up all the tools she’d spilled onto the floor.

“I swear,” she said, speaking to absolutely no one but the engine, “the pretty ones are always bonkers.”

 

* * *

 

By the time Solar got up to the cockpit, Hyerin and Yoona had joined the group, the former sitting in Solji’s lap and the latter sitting cross-legged on the floor. She figured Wheein was somewhere, probably injuring herself as she listened to the conversation on her own tablet.

“Okay, I’m here,” she said, winded from the way she’d sprinted the length of the ship. “What’s up? What’d I miss?”

“You’re really out of shape,” Elly noticed aloud.

Solar would’ve come up with some witty retort but she didn’t have the lung capacity.

“Can we tell you what we found now?” Yuri asked over the speaker. She and Sunny were still in her office, close to their computers where they could do the most damage and be the most helpful. “We’re not getting any younger in here.”

“Yes,” Solji said. “What’s up?”

“So,” Sunny began, taking a deep breath like she was readying herself for something big, “as you may or may not know, the Cosmos went to great lengths to erase Jiyong from the internet. You can’t find his old social media pages, you can’t find any of his official records, you can’t really find anything. What we _do_ know about Jiyong comes from other people who’ve somehow slipped through the cracks, right?”

“Right,” Solji said.

“But what the Cosmos, in their infinite wisdom, seems to have missed is that Jiyong has a pseudonym.”

“A pseudonym?” Hyerin asked. Solji’s arms were around her waist, her chin rested comfortably on her shoulder. They were always liked this, tangled up, one picking up where the other left up. Elly found it equal parts sickening and adorable.

“Like most badass, hipster activists,” Sunny began, “Jiyong had a codename that he used when he was getting shit done. So did all of his little buddies. The Cosmos wiped everything on Kwon Jiyong but they _didn’t_ manage to erase G-Dragon.”

Elly snorted.

“G-Dragon?” she asked. “That’s cute, I guess.”

“He’s an activist?” Solji asked, choosing to focus on the more pressing part of Sunny’s statements.

“Yes, ma’am. It turns out our little Jiyong is quite the Berm preservationist. We found an archived version of his website from about a year and a half ago. There was some literature but it was mostly vlogs. Jiyong had a lot to say about saving the Berm, changing the public view on the Berm, doing whatever we can as a people to protect and admire the Berm. But, and here’s where it gets weird, he also has a whole thing about wormhole conspiracies.”

Solji, Elly and Hyerin all made the exact same face, all cocking eyebrows in confusion and glancing at each other like there was something just out of reach that they were still missing.

“Wormhole conspiracies?” Solji asked.

“Conspiracies, theories, just general rambling and ranting,” Sunny said. “It was like seventy-percent Berm stuff, thirty-percent wormholes.”

“But we weren’t nearly smart enough to decode any of that,” Yuri said. “Sooyoungie, what does your big brain know about wormholes?”

All eyes suddenly glued to her, Sooyoung shifted in her seat.

“I know a little,” she said. “Wormholes are basically portals, like a passageway between two spots in the universe. Some people, the multiverse theorists, think that it’s a bridge between dimensions but much more likely, it’s just a shortcut between two faraway places in the _same_ universe.”

Nodding and thinking deeply, Solji said, “Do they exist?”

“Nobody’s proven it,” Sooyoung went on, “which, of course, doesn’t mean they _don’t_ exist. It just means that we haven’t gotten that far. Not officially anyway. Various people in the scientific community claim they’ve found one at least every other month but nothing’s been substantiated.” After a beat, she nodded her chin to the speaker and added, “Jiyong thinks his group found one?”

“Apparently,” Yuri said. “I’ll forward you the videos and you can draw your own conclusions but put a pin in the wormhole thing for now because we have more.”

“More?” Elly prompted.

“We hacked some emails!” Sunny said cheerfully. “There’s a member of Jiyong’s group who goes by T.O.P. but his real name is Seunghyun and the geo-tags on his emails put him on Jaesan.”

“Jaesan,” Elly parroted quietly, concerned. Jaesan, a small, rocky planet was the first in the Jesamgi System, the neighboring solar system just a few hundred lightyears from Geum Haneul.

It was something like the Las Vegas of the ‘verse, a planet known for bright lights, intense gambling and shady characters. It wasn’t somewhere Elly would’ve spent much time but she had once known someone with extensive ties to players on Jaesan. It wasn’t as bad as, say, an outlier rock but because it wasn’t under Cosmos regulation, it tended to play by its own rules.

And those rules tended to be a little rough.

“In his emails,” Sunny continued, “Seunghyun talks extensively about Jiyong, but he always refers to him as GD and makes sure to disguise any times or locations.”

“All of the locations mentioned have been subbed with places from _Game of Thrones_ ,” Yuri huffed, irritated. “We’re still working on figuring out what they actually are.”

“But here’s where it gets even weirder,” Sunny said. “There are three emails that we haven’t been able to read. One is from six days before Jiyong broke out of jail, one is from the day _after_ Jiyong broke out of jail and one is from two days ago.”

“Why can’t you read them?” Moonbyul asked from the engine room.

“They’re encrypted,” Sunny said. “Like really encrypted. They’re basically written in some bullshit top-secret code and we don’t have the algorithm necessary to crack it.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Yuri amended.

“Right,” said Sunny. “Yet.”

“Why would it be written in secret code?” Elly asked. “Are they in elementary school?”

In the office, Sunny shrugged.                                                                            

“Remember my badass, hipster comment?” she said. “Nothing says hipster hacktivist quite like a secret code.”

“So what do we do, team?” Solji asked, though her tone made it seem awfully rhetorical. She was still holding tightly to her wife, staring off into space and speaking like she was just voicing her thoughts to kill the quiet. “Do we keep on our path to Gangcheol?”

“May I offer my two cents?” Sunny asked politely and Solji smiled.

“Please do.”

“I think that we should go to Jaesan.” (Elly had really, _really_ been hoping that no one would suggest that.) “That’s where Seunghyun is. It’s another two or three days in the air, sure, but by that time, Sooyoung will know everything about Jiyong’s wormholes and Yuri and I will have cracked Seunghyun’s code. We’ll have all the information we need and we’ll be able to bust down his door and have _him_ fill in the blanks.”

There was a long pause.

“And if he doesn’t feel like answering our questions?” Moonbyul asked.

“We’ll cross that wormhole when we get to it,” Sunny said.

Completely on instinct, Solji turned her head to look at Hyerin. She craved any question, comment, opinion or validation that her wife had to offer.

“What do you think?” she asked softly.

“I think our new friend Sunny is right on the money with this one,” Hyerin said. “And even if they crack the code early and it turns out this Seunghyun character isn’t on Jaesan or isn’t as helpful as we think he’ll be, we’re one step closer with our intel. And it’ll take us right past Gangcheol so even if we do change our minds, we can get right back to the original plan. I think it’s the right call.”

There was another moment of thoughtful silence and Solji chewed the inside of her lip as she turned everything over in her mind. Elly recognized her expression, that steely, focused look of a leader about to make a decision that affected everyone.

Though she knew it was sick, Elly couldn’t help but be a little jealous of Solji’s current, crushing responsibility.

 _She_ wanted to be the one to call the shots.

But there was something else on Solji’s face, a twinge of concern and apprehension, and it would’ve been irresponsible for Elly not to address it.

“What’s on your mind, Red?” she asked.

For the first time this conversation, Solji looked up and caught Elly’s eyes directly.

“We have a great team,” she said. “We have a lot of big brains and a lot of great skills but we don’t have any muscle. We don’t have any real weapons. We never really needed them. We have absolutely no pull on Jaesan, no connections, no inside scoop. And Jaesan is a rough-and-tumble place. I just feel like we’re unprepared. I feel like we’re in danger of biting off more than we can chew here. I don’t want to get us into more trouble than we can handle.”

Solji was staring rather intently at Elly and Elly really, really hoped that the other captain didn’t notice the way the color drained from her face. This was what she’d been dreading. This was what she’d been hoping to avoid ever since Sunny had mentioned the word _Jaesan_. This was why her stomach was tied into several knots of varying size and degrees of tightness. This was why her heart was thudding erratically against the inside of her chest and her fingers and toes felt cold.

She clenched her fists at her side, trying to expel the pins and needles that were sparking inside her skin and took a shaky breath. She could keep it to herself, sure, but she was part of a team now. The Unity girls had broken her ship and kind or, sort of ruined her life but they were good people and they’d taken her in. They wouldn’t find Jiyong unless all of them pulled together and did their part and that included Elly.

Even if it hurt.

“I know someone,” Elly said and as soon as the words left her mouth, she was glad that she, Sunny and Moonbyul were in different rooms. She didn’t want to see their faces when she did this. That would’ve made it hurt a whole lot worse.

“You do?” Solji asked. “Who? Why? What do you mean?”

“I know someone who could help us,” she said. “She’s a bruiser, a brawler, just an all-around tough guy. She has muscle. She has weapons. She has extensive ties to the right kind of people and she even has connections on Jaesan.”

“Unnie,” Moonbyul warned, her voice high and frantic. “What are you doing?”

“Stay out of it, Byul,” Elly snapped, looking to the speaker the way she would’ve looked to Moonbyul had she actually been in the room with her.

“And you think this person will help us?” Hyerin asked curiously.

“She hates the Cosmos more than anyone,” Elly went on, “and I’m willing to bet anything that she’s already looking for Jiyong herself just so she can take some of the government’s money and spend it on guns. If we explained to her what’s going on, if we tell her what we know, I think she’d be willing to help us.”

“Elly,” Sunny said, her voice low. “Are you sure about this?”

Elly didn’t miss the concerned glances shooting around the cockpit but she ignored them, forcing them down into her stomach where acid and ice swirled and pooled and made her feel sick.

“Okay,” Solji said, eyes wide. “Who? Who is she?”

Elly closed her eyes, feeling a flood of memories hit her like one of the asteroids the Unity had avoided on their new flightpath.

“My ex-girlfriend,” she said. “Kim Hyuna.”


	10. Chapter 10

While Hyuna was completely and utterly dumbfounded to see the Pandora’s communication-ID pop up onscreen in the cockpit, she was wholly unsurprised to see Moonbyul’s face in the video instead of Elly’s.

Even after all this time, Elly wasn’t ready to forgive her.

That was fine. Hyuna could accept that. (At least that was what she was telling herself.) It hadn’t been a very personal message anyway.

Moonbyul’s voice was cold and professional as she explained the situation – the Pandora had been destroyed in pursuit of Kwon Jiyong and Elly, Moonbyul and Sunny had joined forces with a group of girls from a ship called the Unity. While pooling their resources and continuing their fervent investigation into Jiyong’s disappearance, they uncovered some secrets that Moonbyul said could change everything.

“I can’t give too much away in a video message,” Moonbyul said in the recording. “Sunny says that this is being sent over a secure connection but you know I’m not one for taking chances. You meet us on Geum Haneul and we’ll tell you everything. We’ll _explain_ everything.” At this point in the message, Moonbyul shifted a little in her seat and leaned closer to the camera. “I know how you feel about the Cosmos. Trust me, Hyuna. You’re going to want to hear this and you’re going to want to get involved.”

The video ended as abruptly as it began and Hyuna watched it three more times just to make sure she fully understood what she was hearing and what was being asked of her.

Hyoyeon watched from the doorway of the cockpit, her arms folded over her chest. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t make a sound, didn’t give her two cents. This was dangerous territory, both personally and professionally. Seeing the Pandora girls again was likely to have disastrous emotional consequences for Hyuna and following them on a potential wild goose chase could blow whatever head start they’d earned getting that file off of Jeongbu.

Ultimately, it was Hyuna’s call, and Hyoyeon’s theories and opinions could end up doing more harm than good. Whatever Hyuna decided, Hyoyeon would have her back.

She was just going to have to be ready to deal with the fallout.

“What do we do, unnie?” Hyuna asked when the video ended for the fourth time. She didn’t bother turning around, knowing damn well that Hyoyeon was lurking and waiting to be addressed.

“It’s your call, kitten,” Hyoyeon said, abandoning the doorframe so that she could move closer to her friend. “You know that.” She looked down at Hyuna, unsettled to see her captain so rattled and deflated, and reached out to play with the ends of her dark hair. She hoped the gesture didn’t seem too consoling or overly-affectionate, as that would probably make proud-to-a-fault Kim Hyuna uncomfortable, but she simply couldn’t resist doing something.

“There’s that sushi place on Geum Haneul,” Hyuna said absently, seemingly oblivious to Hyoyeon’s presence now that she was beside her. “Even if we don’t like what they have to say, we can get dinner.” She glanced at one of the screens on the dashboard, the one that showed their position in the ‘verse, and shrugged. “We can be there in a few hours.” Hyuna peered up at Hyoyeon, her eyes tired. “What do you say?”

“Whatever you think is best,” Hyoyeon said, faking the nonchalance in her voice.

Hyuna nodded slowly, chewing the inside of her cheek as she looked out the windshield, literally staring into space.

In the end, Hyuna made her inevitable decision and Hyoyeon courteously pretended not to notice the way the captain checked her hair and makeup before recording a message back to Moonbyul, agreeing to meet. Moonbyul didn’t bother sending a video back, choosing instead to reply with a three-line email, and Hyoyeon suppressed a familiar pang of irritation.

She’d never cared much for Moonbyul.

And that was how Hyoyeon end Hyuna ended up at the ever-popular Juyuso refueling station on Geum Haneul, the very same station that the Pandora girls had visited less than a month before when they’d heard about Jiyong.

They’d been parked for a while, both of them in their usual seats in the cockpit, both of them utterly silent. Hyuna was staring at the clock, not moving, not blinking, barely _breathing_ and Hyoyeon was worried.

But she was also torn.

She wanted to help but she didn’t want to pry. She wanted to extend a hand but didn’t want to overstep her boundaries. She wanted to know how Hyuna was doing but she didn’t want to ask.

This was a sensitive subject.

Hyuna had never really recovered from Elly.

That breakup had been like a nasty accident, leaving Hyuna wounded and scarred. With no real closure, Hyuna’s heart was like a broken bone that had never been properly set – it had healed, but incorrectly. It had mended itself, growing back together and stitching itself back up, but it was never the same.

Hyuna was never the same.

And now, as sometimes happened when you got romantically involved with other pilots, Hyuna’s complicated past with Elly was bleeding into her professional life. And Hyoyeon had a feeling it was going to get ugly.

They weren’t scheduled to meet until five o’clock, Moonbyul implying in her ridiculous three-sentence email that it would be some sort of dinner date. While it made Hyoyeon’s skin crawl to think of breaking bread with the Pandora girls, she tried to remind herself of the greater good.

As much as she disliked them, the girls of the Pandora were incredibly smart and incredibly capable. If anyone could uncover potentially universe-altering government secrets, it was them. Hyoyeon had no idea what it was they’d dug up but for Moonbyul to reach out Hyuna? It had to be something significant.

And possessing significant government secrets could mean anything from a giant payday to saving the universe and so, despite all of her misgivings and all of the alarms blaring in her head, Hyoyeon had to suck it up and deal with it.

Hyuna was a big girl and she could take care of herself.

If she didn’t think she could see Elly again, she wouldn’t have agreed to meet them.

Or maybe she would have done just that. Hyoyeon wasn’t really sure anymore.

Anxious, Hyoyeon checked her watch.

4:47.

Thirteen minutes left to kill and Hyoyeon was all out of fingernails to chew.

She looked to Hyuna out of the corner of her eye, trying (and mostly failing) to be inconspicuous. The younger girl had showered and changed and with the tight, black-and-red outfit she’d chosen, Hyoyeon figured that Hyuna was trying to look tough. That made sense to Hyoyeon. Hyuna wanted to look like the confident, dangerous space criminal that the Pandora girls had known, not the heartbroken fool who sometimes still wore Elly’s old flight school sweatshirt to bed.

Christ, this was going to suck.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Hyuna asked casually. Her feet were rested on the dashboard, her hands folded comfortably over her stomach. She almost looked relaxed.

“Politics,” Hyoyeon lied. She was a very good liar.

Hyuna snorted.

“You hate politics,” she said.

“And that’s the part I’m thinking about,” she said. “That guy from Daedosi, the one running for senator, what’s his name?”

“Kim Sungsoo.”

Hyoyeon nodded.

“I think he’s a twat.”

Hyuna laughed out loud but as soon as her giggles faded, it was quiet again and Hyoyeon balled her fists at her side, wishing that they could just fly away from this stupid planet and get back on Jiyong’s tail.

She would always support Hyuna and she would always have her back but Hyoyeon just couldn’t help wondering what they were getting themselves into, couldn’t help wondering if they were walking right back into the mess they’d left two years before.

And she couldn’t help wondering if this would end up doing more harm than good.

“Are you okay?” Hyoyeon finally blurted after ten of their remaining thirteen minutes had passed by in thick wordlessness.

Hyuna’s responding smile was joyless, humorless.

“Tens of thousands of ships in the ‘verse,” Hyuna said dreamily, “and it _had_ to be the Pandora?”

Hyoyeon smiled, another boldface lie designed to hide the way she was screaming inside.

“It’s a small, small ‘verse after all,” she said, then she gestured to her watch. “We should probably get going. Moonbyul is going to be waiting for us.”

Hyuna nodded and stood, clapping her hands once – a nervous habit.

“Guess it’s now or never, huh, unnie?”

“Seems like it,” Hyoyeon said.

As they headed for the door, Hyoyeon held her breath and tried to will the universe to give her best friend a better ending this time.

 

* * *

 

Elly sat in the cockpit, somehow sure that she could _feel_ each and every second as it ticked by and brought her closer to seeing Hyuna again. She could feel it in her teeth, a dull ache that pulsed in the enamel and grew stronger as time passed her at warp-speed.

She was in Sooyoung’s usual seat, her knees pulled to her chest and her chin rested on top.

Solji was the captain’s seat, trying not to stare.

“You’re looking kind of green,” she observed. “If you’re going to throw up, can you do it, like, in the hallway?” Elly shot her a look and Solji shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be insensitive. I’m just saying we can’t really open a window and air out the puke smell, you know? And I spend a lot of time in here.”

Elly opened her mouth to say something snarky but words failed her. In any event, even if she _had_ been able to think of something witty, she would’ve been cut off by the _whoosh_ of the doors opening. A second later, Hyerin appeared with a mug in her hand a bright smile on her face, both of which, Elly could tell, were for Solji.

“Here, baby,” she said, offering first the cup and then a kiss on the cheek. “Tea.”

“You’re the best,” Solji said lovingly and in spite of how awful she felt, Elly smiled. Whenever these two were in a room together, they radiated love and warmth. It was gross and wonderful. They were so in love with each other than it was almost tangible and even small, simple interactions like this seemed to fill the whole room with light.

“Can I get you anything, kid?” Hyerin asked, nodding her chin at the tightly-wound ball of self-pity formerly known as Ahn Elly. “Some soda? An aspirin? Hard liquor maybe?”

Solji laughed but shooed Hyerin away.

“Don’t worry, ladybug,” she said. “I got this. You just go make sure Sunny and Yuri are still working on cracking Jiyong’s code, okay?”

Hyerin nodded, smiling, and Elly could hardly miss the way her new friend gazed back at Solji like she was the only woman in the entire galaxy.

“You two have fun,” she said, walking backwards towards the double doors. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Even though Hyerin had left, the air of happiness and affection remained and Elly said, “You two are really cute together.”

Blushing and looking away like a schoolgirl in love, Solji said, “Thank you.”

“How long have you two been married?”

“Two years,” Solji said matter-of-factly. “But we were together for a long time before that.”

“Is it weird,” Elly asked, “to work and travel with your wife like that?”

Solji shook her head, though the sudden crease in her forehead said that she was thinking about her answer.

“No, not really,” she said. “Not for us at least.” Swinging thoughtfully in her seat, Solji shrugged and added, “But I guess that could have a lot to do with our timeline. It wasn’t like we were platonic co-workers first or friends that happened to fall for each other over time. I was at a clinic stocking up on medical supplies when I saw Hyerin and I just knew that I was going to marry her.”

“Really?” Elly asked, her eyes lighting up just slightly from the story.

Solji nodded.

“I never thought that the ship needed a doctor,” she said, “until I saw _this_ doctor.”

“And what if it hadn’t worked out? Would you have fired her?”

Solji smirked.

“I guess we’ll never know,” she said and laughed at the absurdity of the thought of firing her own wife. But Elly didn’t laugh. If anything, she seemed to pull her legs closer to her body. Solji barely knew this girl but her heart was breaking over how pitiful she looked. She could tell that Ahn Elly was once the fiercest of the fierce but losing her beloved ship had weakened her. Now, being forced to reunite with someone from her past, someone who had clearly meant a whole hell of a lot, Solji worried that this girl was going to crack. “Seriously, kid, are you okay?”

Elly shrugged as best she could without breaking her own embrace.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she countered feebly and her voice, brittle and dull, reminded Solji of chalk.

“Tell me about this Hyuna character,” Solji said after a beat, trying to mask her bluntness in a soothing tone of voice. Hyerin sometimes said that Solji was too straightforward with people and needed to work on softening the blow a little, and Solji had taken that advice to heart. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to go into detail. But, shit, kid, look at you. You’re a wreck. And if for no other reason than I’ve known you longer, I want to be on your side. So tell me what I need to know so this runs smoothly tonight. Okay?”

Elly swallowed hard but nodded anyway, slowly dropping her legs to the floor and getting into a more comfortable position in Sooyoung’s chair. She took a deep breath, avoiding Solji’s stare as she tried to decide where to begin.

“We met at a bar,” Elly said after a quiet moment of thought, “less than a year after I started working with Sunny and Moonbyul. I was in a booth, people-watching, and this girl comes up to me and starts flirting. My first thought was that she was way, way too pretty to be talking to me. But somehow we hit it off. We had a lot in common. She thought I was funny and as for me, I guess I’ve just always been into bad girls.”

Solji cocked an eyebrow, intrigued.

“So Hyuna’s a bad girl?”

“She thinks she is,” Elly said. “She’s good in a fight and she’s good with weapons and she talks a big game but inside, she’s always been a really good person. And before I lived with the girls in my crappy, banged up ship, Hyuna and I lived together on Jugeo. It was nice, you know? Being all domestic and sweet with each other. I couldn’t cook and she never cleaned but we worked it out. She had her ship, I had mine. We’d come home from work and just be happy to be together.” Elly shrugged, remembering how it felt to just _be_ with Hyuna – no expectations, no requirements, no pressure. “We were just really in love with each other. From the very beginning, we just fit. I saw through all her tough guy bullshit and I saw the real Hyuna. And I loved her. I thought I’d been in love before but I was wrong. It was never like this.”

Solji nodded, trying in vain to put a face to the name.

“What happened?” Solji prompted when it seemed like Elly wasn’t going to say anything else.

Elly shrugged again, staring down at her feet.

“We had a friend,” Elly said. “Nana. She was in our circle, someone we hung out with a lot. Nana was basically a decent enough person but she liked to start trouble. She didn’t believe in monogamy, always talked shit when someone in our group got a girlfriend.”

Solji had an inkling where this was going.

“Oh no,” she said.

Elly just nodded.

“I didn’t think anything of it when they were spending time together,” she said. “They were friends and I’m not at all the jealous type. I didn’t even blink when Hyuna said they were going out drinking one night. But apparently I should have been worried because that night, Hyuna brought Nana back to our apartment and fucked her in our bed.”

Solji clenched her teeth, inhaling sharply.

“How’d you find out?” she asked.

“Moonbyul walked in on them,” Elly said, suddenly reliving the eviscerating conversation that had followed that terrible night. She laughed bitterly, remembering every word. “You know, I didn’t even believe Moonbyul when she told me. I thought she was lying, trying to break us up. She’d never liked Hyuna, not even in the beginning.”

“Why not?”

“Moonbyul has this ridiculous image of me,” Elly began, gesturing wildly out of frustration. “She thinks I’m some insanely moral superhero who always does the right thing. And she thought Hyuna brought out the worst in me, like she was a bad influence or something.” Elly bit her bottom lip, fighting back the lump forming in her throat. “Maybe she was. I don’t know. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty but it’s all still fuzzy for me.”

“What happened after you found out?”

“I confronted Nana,” she said, “which was hilarious because she didn’t think she did anything wrong. She laughed it off and said she was sorry but I knew she didn’t regret it. She would’ve done it again. For Nana, sex was always just a game. And I guess she’d always been more into Hyuna than I realize.”

“Did Hyuna deny it?”

“No. She admitted it. What followed was probably the worst fight in the history of Jugeo. We screamed, we cried, we broke shit, we blamed the other person for all our problems, took cheap shots just so we could hurt each other. It was really bad. We just went to war and destroyed everything that we’d had. And then I packed a bag and went to stay with Sunny.” She wasn’t sure when it had started but her hands were shaking. “It wasn’t even all her fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was a shitty girlfriend towards the end,” Elly admitted. “Distant, absent, inattentive. I didn’t mean to be. I’m independent, sometimes to a fault, probably. I was an up-and-coming captain trying to prove herself. I didn’t have time to dote on my girlfriend. And Hyuna, for as tough as she is, she really needs attention and validation. She _needs_ a lot more than I do. She needs more to remind her that she’s still loved and appreciated. And I was so wrapped up in me that I forgot how to take care of her. And that’s on me.”

“Still doesn’t make it okay for her to sleep with someone else,” Solji said.

“I guess I just understand why she did it,” Elly shrugged. “Nana was willing to give her the attention she needed, the attention she _deserved_ , while I was playing space cowboy.” Elly sighed deeply, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I'm oversimplifying it. There were a lot of layers to our relationships and probably a whole fuck of a lot more reasons why we weren't going to work out but it wasn't just her fault." Elly bit the inside of her cheek, trying to remember the last time she'd _seen_ Kim Hyuna. "And now it’s been two years and Hyuna is about to walk onto this ship.”

Solji ran a hand through her red hair and stared down at her mug of tea, suddenly feeling very, very fortunate. She and Elly had had an extremely different last two years, and she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever all-knowing deity may have governed the universe.

She was so lucky to have Hyerin.

“Can I be honest with you?” Solji asked.

“Please do,” Elly said.

“Tonight is going to hurt like hell,” she said, “but you’ll live. It’s not going to be pleasant but you’re going to survive. And for the good of the ‘verse, you’re going to stay strong and figure this shit out.” She put her mug down on the ledge of the dashboard and moved to the very edge of her seat. “Elly, from one pilot to another, there is some seriously shady shit happening in our galaxy and we have some unique resources that can potentially make a big difference. She reached across as best she could and put her hand on Elly’s knee. “You’re a captain, Elly, so I know you understand sacrifice. And if Hyuna is as good as you say she is, if you think she can really help us, you need to fight through the pain and help me navigate tonight’s meeting.”

Elly sniffled. She hadn’t even realized she’d started crying.

Wiping her eyes, with her sleeve, Elly said, “She _is_ good and we _do_ need her help.” She nodded, resigning herself to Solji’s wise words. She was thinking like a captain now, already bracing herself for impact, trying to prepare herself to the pain. She looked up and met Solji’s eyes, feeling nothing but respect for the older woman. “I’ll be fine. It’ll hurt but I’ll live.”

Solji patted her leg and then stood up, retrieving her mug and taking a long sip.

“That's the spirit,” she said. “In the meantime, feel free to take my wife up on her offer of hard liquor.”

Once again, Solji laughed but Elly didn’t.

“I really thought I was going to marry her someday,” Elly said quietly. “I thought we’d get married and have kids and be together forever.”

Solji clicked her tongue, a habit.

Kids. That was a complicated subject.

She offered Elly her free hand, aiding in pulling the younger captain to her feet. Once they were both up, she wrapped her left arm casually around Elly’s shoulders, suddenly feeling like they’d known each other a lot longer than they had. Sometimes it felt like space had the power to speed up time and jump-start the intensity of relationships, platonic or otherwise.

“Buck up, soldier,” she said as they headed for the door. “You’re going to help save the ‘verse and then you’re going to have more girls than you can handle.”

 

* * *

 

Moonbyul was smart and knew how to delegate.

That was why she’d sent Wheein and Solar to pick up the Juggernaut girls and bring them back to the Unity. No point in rushing the inevitable fighting that would follow.

But Moonbyul was nervous as she bode her time in the spacious common room. She wasn’t alone – Yuri was on the couch, her computer in her lap, typing so fast that she was actually sweating. She and Sunny had spent the last thirty hours trying to crack Jiyong’s code to no avail. Frustrated and sick of the computer room, they’d split up, the redhead now working from the comfort of the observation deck.

They were still working on an open line of communication, though, with their computer’s microphone’s catching every word. Every few minutes, Yuri would curse or Sunny would ask a question and break the silence.

Moonbyul didn’t mind. She was too busy being worried about seeing Hyuna again, too worried about _Elly_ seeing Hyuna again. Moonbyul hadn’t actually seen much of Elly that day but she’d expected that. Elly wasn’t the type of person who liked to feel things out loud. If Moonbyul knew Elly like she thought she did, Elly was probably hiding somewhere, bracing herself.

That’s what Moonbyul would be doing if she wasn’t so busy pacing.

“You’re making me dizzy,” Yuri said without looking away from her screen.

“Sorry,” Moonbyul muttered, making zero efforts to stop. She was chewing on her fingernails, wishing she kept them longer so that she had something more substantial to bite. “Sometimes when I get nervous, I tend to–”

Her words were halted by the _whoosh_ of the door.

“…and this here is the common room,” Solar was saying and for the very first time, her sweet voice didn’t make Moonbyul’s heart flutter.

She swallowed hard.

Their guests had arrived.

And as soon as she heard Hyuna’s voice, Moonbyul’s nerves transformed, hardening instantly into something much, much colder.

“It’s a really nice ship you have here,” Hyuna said and Moonbyul felt like snarling. “How many people can you guys house? Comfortably, I mean?”

If Solar planned to answer, she changed her mind when she saw Moonbyul, choosing instead to step aside and let the other girls enter the common room.

Moonbyul held her breath…

…and then she saw Hyuna’s face and everything came rushing back – the rage she’d felt when she walked in Elly’s bedroom to find Hyuna with Nana’s head between her legs, how much it hurt her to see Elly crying on the bathroom floor of Sunny’s apartment, broken and drunk off her ass, and how hard it was watching her best friend struggle to move on from the girl who wrecked her heart.

It took all of Moonbyul’s restraint not to clench her fists and square up to fight.

When Hyuna and Moonbyul _did_ finally make eye contact, it felt like a showdown out of one of the Wild West movies that Elly liked.

Long gone was Hyuna’s anxious apprehension. All Moonbyul could see in the eyes of her long-standing enemy was cold-blooded confidence.

Hyuna stared at Moonbyul like she had something to say but instead turned to Solar and asked, “Can I use your bathroom?”

Moonbyul scoffed. She hadn’t wanted to be outwardly belligerent, wanted instead to try and be the bigger person, but she couldn’t help herself. The emotions were still too raw.

“Don’t let her,” Moonbyul warned, her eyes never leaving Hyuna. “She’ll probably jam something into the electrical socket to hack your computer system.”

Hyuna smiled, clearly charmed by Moonbyul’s lack of control, but Hyoyeon exploded.

It was like they’d never been apart. They were picking up exactly where they’d left off, the two years that had passed doing nothing to lessen the animosity between them.

“Still a snitch, huh?” Hyoyeon barked, her tone icy. Moonbyul ignored her.

The last time they’d seen each other, Hyoyeon’s hair had been darker and a whole lot longer. Now, it was platinum blonde and chopped above her shoulders.

It was actually cute.

Moonbyul always thought Hyoyeon would be pretty if she wasn’t such a cunt all the time.

“How’ve you been, Moonbyul?” Hyuna asked, her attempt at being friendly. She swallowed hard and turned to face Moonbyul, putting up a smile that almost looked genuine. But Moonbyul wasn’t fooled. Hyuna had always been good at faking things, always good at putting up well-painted walls between her and anyone who dared to get to close to her. Her smile almost looked real but, then again, Hyuna almost looked human.

Moonbyul knew better.

“Oh, you know,” Moonbyul said casually, crossing her arms over her chest as she spoke. “A little busy, what with this hundred-million-dollar space race, but otherwise? Just peachy. What about you, Hyuna? Still a dragon whore?”

From behind them, Wheein snorted. She’d been so quiet that Moonbyul had forgotten she was there. She took a step back when everyone glared at her but the attention was only on her for a second. Hyoyeon and Moonbyul couldn’t keep their angry eyes off of each other for very long.

“Well,” Hyuna said, clapping her hands together. “This is surely going to be a party but I really do need to pee. Bathroom?”

Solar cleared her throat and nodded, gesturing for Wheein to come with her.

“Right through here,” she said, pointing.

Hyoyeon and Moonbyul went back to glaring at each other, the deafening silence only broken by the sound of Yuri’s frantic typing. Moonbyul was clenching her jaw, grinding her teeth so that she wouldn’t spit.

“So, Byul,” Hyoyeon began. “What’s it like flying around the galaxy in something other than your shitty Pandora?”

Moonbyul shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What’s it like flying around the galaxy with the queen of darkness?”

Hyoyeon licked her lips.

“Still so dramatic,” Hyoyeon said. “I guess not much has changed. How’s your friend Elly?”

Moonbyul squeezed her fists even harder.

“Don’t you talk about her,” Moonbyul warned but Hyoyeon wasn’t impressed.

“Or what? You’ll tell on me?” She scoffed. “What else is new?”

“She broke her heart,” Moonbyul growled. “Your _precious_ Hyuna destroyed my best friend.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Hyoyeon said.

“You don’t remember Hyuna fucking Nana?”

“I don’t remember Hyuna being the one who broke someone's heart.”

Moonbyul snorted.

“Hyuna _cheated on her_ ,” Moonbyul barked, enunciating and talking with her hands to milk her words for all they were worth.

“Yeah? After how many _months_ of Elly being shitty and distant to her all the time?”

“In what fucking universe does that justify having sex with someone else?”

“Are you _really_ still pretending that Elly is completely and utterly innocent in all of this?” Hyoyeon asked, dumbfounded. “Really, Moonbyul? After all this time with Elly, you really still think the sun shines out her ass?”

“You’re still a fucking idiot,” Moonbyul said and that was the first thing that made Hyoyeon laugh.

“You keep telling yourself that Elly is totally perfect and Hyuna is the villain,” she said. “You keep living in that ridiculous dream world, Byul. You keep thinking Hyuna was the one who hurt Elly. Keep thinking she’s the big heartbreaker.”

“You know what I think, Hyoyeon? I think–”

“Jesus!” screamed Yuri as she slammed her laptop closed. “Agree to disagree, ladies! They broke each other’s hearts, okay? Shut the hell up! For fuck’s sake, I am working here! Trying to crack the code and save the universe remember? Aigoo!”

She stood up, mumbled more swear words under her breath and stormed out, leaving Hyoyeon and Moonbyul with matching expressions as they watched her leave.

“Save the universe?” Hyoyeon asked, an eyebrow cocked.

Moonbyul exhaled roughly, realizing with concrete certainty that she and Hyoyeon were going to need to temporarily bury the hatchet in order to make this work.

Nodding, she gestured to the door.

“It's a long story,” she said reluctantly. “Come on. Someone will explain everything.”

 

* * *

 

By the time Moonbyul and Hyoyeon made it up to the kitchen, Solji, Elly, Hyerin, Yoona, Sooyoung and Sunny were already in attendance. Everyone but Solji and Elly were seated at the long table, waiting patiently for the guests of honor to arrive and kick things off. But the captains were standing against the wall and looking steely and authoritative.

Elly’s poker face was just a very convincing façade. Inside, she was a wreck and she was suddenly very worried that everyone else in the room could hear her heart pounding. She knew that Sunny could see right through her. Moonbyul, too. She just really hoped that the girls from the Unity and the Juggernaut couldn’t see how weak she truly felt.

When Hyoyeon appeared, Elly felt the expected rush of pain and memories, but it was duller than she'd imagined.

“Solji,” Moonbyul said, her voice flat, “meet Kim Hyoyeon.”

“Hyoyeon,” said Solji, pushing off the wall long enough to shake Hyoyeon's hand. “Thanks for coming.”

“What can I say?” Hyoyeon remarked, blowing her bangs out of her face. “Moonbyul can make a very convincing speech.”

Moonbyul shot Hyoyeon a look and exhaled through her nose, already regretting having any part in this meeting. She gestured to an open chair and Hyoyeon took a seat, not bothering to say anything else.

Sensing the tension, Solji cleared her throat and said, “So now we're just waiting on--”

A second later, the remaining girls arrived. Yuri was first, her laptop in her arms and her eyes still glued to the screen. She took the empty seat next to Sunny like she'd done it a thousand times and mumbled something to the redhead that was riddled with tech jargon.

Wheein was next, looking just slightly less bubbly than usual, followed by Solar who looked downright troubled.

And then Hyuna walked into the dining room and Elly felt like someone had opened a window during flight, all of the breathable air being sucked out into the dark abyss of space and being replaced with an ice-cold pressure that was crushing her bones.

She tried not to look directly at her, afraid she'd go blind or turn to stone or, worst of all, acknowledge how pretty she looked with her hair that length.

Elly suddenly wished that she was beside Sunny or Moonbyul. Sunny would do something comforting like hold her hand or rub her back, and Moonbyul would probably pinch her, saying later that she was trying to use a little bit of pain to keep her focused.

Elly wasn't sure which she needed more.

Solji swallowed hard, recognizing Hyuna from the pictures Moonbyul had showed her. She didn’t want to hate her, didn’t want to let Elly’s sad story to cloud her head and interfere with her professional responsibilities, but it was hard. For whatever reason, she actually kind of _liked_ Elly. Having her shipped destroyed was hard enough but having to face the ex that had broken her heart?

It had been a shitty few weeks for everybody but Elly was certainly suffering more than the rest of them. And Solji didn't know much about the younger captain but she figure that nobody deserved that kind of pain.

“Kim Hyuna,” Solji said, her professional tone hiding all of her inner turmoil. “Thank you for coming. It’s great to have you onboard. I’m Heo Solji.”

“Thanks for the invite,” Hyuna said.

Their handshake was firm and brief and then Hyuna took the seat next to Hyoyeon, staring back at Solji like she expected her to sit down, too. But if Elly wanted to stand, Solji would stand with her. It wasn’t the grandest of gestures but it was what Solji would’ve wanted someone to do for her.

Everyone else filled into their seats, though the ones to Hyuna’s left and Hyoyeon’s right stayed noticeably empty. Everyone wanted their help and wanted to hear what they had to offer but nobody wanted to get too close.

“So,” Hyuna said, folding her hands on the table as she leaned forward in her seat. “What’s happening in the universe, ladies?”

Solji would’ve had to have been blind to miss the looks on Sunny and Moonbyul’s faces. After all this time, they were still pissed and they didn’t care if the Juggernaut girls knew it. At the very least, they were very loyal friends.

And Solji had to admit that Hyoyeon and Hyuna were a little intimidating. Hyuna, with her studded leather jacket and heavy eye makeup, almost seemed like she was playing a part but from the stories Moonbyul had told Solji, there was nothing fake about the captain of the Juggernaut. She was tough as nails and her reputation as a bandit and a badass preceded her. And Hyoyeon? Her body language _screamed_ that she didn’t give a shit and from what Moonbyul had explained, that was spot on. Hyoyeon didn’t give a shit _who_ she needed to fuck with to achieve her goals.

They were talented and resourceful and just a little bit reckless, a dangerous combination when it came to well-funded, well-armed freelancers in a powerful ship.

But if they really had connections on Jaesan and an axe to grind with the Cosmos, they were exactly who the Unity needed to help find Jiyong.

“Sooyoung,” Solji said. “You want to get us started?”

Sooyoung cleared her throat, looking up for the first time.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. There was a pile of papers in front of her, printouts of research on Jiyong and Seunghyun and wormholes and encryption, and Sooyoung played with the corners of the pages as she wondered where to begin. “Okay.”

She introduced the rest of the Unity’s crew, awkwardly skipping over Sunny, Moonbyul and Elly, and then dove headfirst into what they’d ascertained about Jiyong’s past. She started with a brief summary of where they’d been so far, explaining the breadcrumbs that had led them through the first half of the galaxy and eventually to Cheoeum where they ran into the Pandora – literally. Sooyoung blushed a little as she explained the mishap that led to the Unity and the Pandora joining forces but quickly moved onto the topic of wormholes and everything new they’d learned about Jiyong.

She told Hyuna and Hyoyeon about Jiyong’s pseudonym, about Seunghyun, about the encrypted code that Sunny and Yuri were trying to crack. She talked about Jiyong and Seunghyun’s group, about all they did to protect to Berm and the lengths they went to in order to spread their message. Hyoyeon seemed a little surprised that these deeply-connected, fiercely-protected criminals were Berm preservationists but at no point during Sooyoung’s spiel did Hyuna even blink.

Solji was splitting her attention between Hyuna and Elly, trying to make sure that the former was paying close enough attention and taking Sooyoung’s words seriously and that the latter wasn’t going to burst into tears. So far, they were both passing. Hyuna was listening intently, nodding along as Sooyoung spoke, but not doing anything over-the-top like taking notes or asking questions. And Elly? She was just staring at her shoes. That was okay, Solji figured. That was an appropriate response given the situation.

Moonbyul was doing the same thing, her gaze either pointed angrily at Hyuna or soft and directed at Elly. Solji could appreciate that Moonbyul was a loyal friend who was simply concerned for someone she loved, but she really hoped the girl could keep her emotions in check until the meeting was over.

At least Solar was beside her. It was glaringly obvious the way she and Moonbyul had taken a shine to each other. Maybe Solar’s presence would be enough to keep Moonbyul tethered.

Sooyoung wrapped up her speech by explaining that Seunghyun was somewhere on Jaesan and still actively posting about Jiyong.

“At least,” she said, gesturing with her hands as she spoke, “that’s what we can tell from the stuff _not_ written in top-secret code.”

Once it was all explained and laid out, everything from the wormhole to the encryption to the accident on Cheoeum to theories regarding Seunghyun’s actual location on Jaesan, Sooyoung took a deep breath and then a long sip of water from the glass beside her.

Solji smiled contentedly. Sooyoung may’ve been a questionable copilot but she was one hell of a public speaker.

There was a pause after Sooyoung finished her lecture, a sudden silence that was so noticeable, Sunny and Yuri both looked up from their computers like they were worried they’d missed something.

Before stepping up to break the quiet, Solji looked around the table, scanning each face and trying to determine the emotional break-down of the ladies in the room. Sunny and Yuri looked confused by the silence but otherwise completely focused on their work. Moonbyul looked angry but Solji understood the extenuating circumstances there. Hyerin, Sooyoung and Solar all looked content and caught up, like they’d already accepted their new realities and were ready to tackle whatever came next. Wheein and Yoona almost looked amused, like they couldn’t believe how big and intense and heavy things had gotten in such a small frame of time.

And then there were the Juggernaut girls. Hyoyeon seemed just slightly agitated, like she was anticipating a confrontation that Solji was never planning to let happen, but there was a clarity in her eyes that showed she’d absorbed everything Sooyoung had thrown at them. Hyuna, meanwhile, appeared to be staring blankly into space but Solji recognized the nod of her head and the clench of her jaw – she was listening and she was thinking very deeply. Hyerin had a similar body language when she was working something through in her mind.

Last was Elly. Solji tried to be discreet when she turned to the young captain but her discretion was futile. Everyone onboard knew about Elly and Hyuna’s past and, as such, they’d been stealing glances the whole time Sooyoung was talking. It was hard to tell whether or not Elly had even _noticed_. Her eyes were still on the floor, her arms folded protectively over her chest, like they’d somehow keep her heart from breaking a second time.

Solji felt for the girl, sympathized with how shitty she must’ve felt inside, but couldn’t dwell on it for long.

“Do you have any questions?” Solji asked, looking to Hyuna. “Comments? Anything?”

Hyuna squinted a little as she looked at something on one of the papers Sooyoung had given her.

“You ladies have done an awful lot of work,” she said after another few seconds. “And it’s impressive how much you’ve uncovered.” She looked up and caught Solji’s eyes. “But there’s a whole lot you don’t know.”

Wheein gasped at this, an overly dramatic reaction that stemmed from how much she was enjoying the tension in the room, but Solji just raised an eyebrow.

“Such as?” she asked.

“This wormhole,” Hyuna said. “I mean, why do you think that Jiyong’s group is so obsessed with it?”

“Alleged wormhole,” Moonbyul pointed out dully.

Hyuna shook her head.

“There’s nothing alleged about it, sister. Sure, so far, there have only been whispers and rumors but I’m willing to bet my entire ship that this is the Bermhole.”

Moonbyul snorted.

“The what?”

“It’s a nickname,” Hyoyeon said, “that dark-net conspiracy theorists have given to a wormhole. But it’s not just any wormhole. It’s a wormhole that leads to another ‘verse – the _Berm_ ‘verse.”

“What do you mean?” Hyerin asked.

“This universe is mostly humans, right?” Hyoyeon continued. “Well this wormhole leads to the Berm’s home universe. They’re not from here, not originally. And after hundreds of years of searching, some guy, Zhang something-or-other, found the wormhole that linked the two universes. How do you think the Berm ended up here in the first place? There needed to be some sort of door between our world and their’s, right?”

Solji was so taken aback by that, she was almost grimacing.

Luckily, Sunny wasn’t so shocked.

“If that’s true, why haven’t we found anything online about it?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t know where to look,” Hyoyeon said, her tone condescending. Sunny shot her a look so nasty, Solji nearly laughed, but Yuri touched her shoulder, a nonverbal reminder that Hyoyeon wasn’t worth her rage. “But just because you haven’t come across anything doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It very much exists, Sunny, and there’s an incredibly high chance that _this_ is the wormhole Jiyong’s group is fixated on.”

“Okay,” Solji said, speaking over the quiet pulse of murmurs that had broken out. She looked to Hyuna whose confidence suggested she had a lot more information to share. “Say that’s true. _Why_ would Jiyong’s group care about that?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” she said. “It’s not why Jiyong would care. It’s who _else_ would care.”

Solji shrugged and shook her head.

“Can you stop speaking in riddles, please?” she demanded. “We have different resources and different pools of knowledge. Tell me what I need to know to understand this.”

Nodding almost apologetically, Hyuna said, “Do you know what Jiyong was arrested for? The official charge, I mean. The reason he went to jail.”

“Treason,” Moonbyul said. “Whatever that means.”

Hyuna nodded again.

“Exactly. Doesn’t that seem like a weird charge? When was the last time you heard of someone being tried for treason?”

“What is your _point_ , Hyuna?” Solji said, irritated as she rubbed at her temples.

“ _Treason_ ,” she continued coldly, the weight of her own history with that particular word making her body ache almost as much as her heart, “is just a fancy way of saying that Jiyong wasn’t cooperating with the Cosmos. He pissed off the government and they threw him in jail because they couldn’t get him to talk.”

“Talk about what?” Yoona asked, speaking for the first time.

Hyoyeon groaned and pounded both fists on the table before rubbing her face with her hands, completely exasperated.

“How are you not getting this?” she snapped. “Jiyong’s group found out the location of the Bermhole. The government wanted to know where it was. Jiyong wouldn’t tell them so Jiyong rots in a maximum security prison until he’s willing to give up the goods. You with me? You following me? You dig?”

Hyuna opened her mouth to say something but instead just shook her head and patted Hyoyeon’s knee, trying to get her friend and partner to take it down a notch or two.

Exhausted and sick of the way getting information from the Juggernaut girls felt like pulling teeth, Solji abandoned her spot on the wall and took the empty seat directly across from Hyuna. Elly felt the loss immediately but didn’t react outwardly in any way. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

“Hyuna, stop beating around the goddamn bush,” Solji said sternly. “Why the fuck would the Cosmos care about this wormhole?”

Hyuna shrugged.

“That,” she said, “I don’t know. I mean unless there was some sort of–” She felt a jolt like she’d been struck with lightning and then froze suddenly. After a second, she turned to Hyoyeon, her eyes wide. “Heechul,” she said quietly.

It took Hyoyeon a minute to catch up but when she did, she put both hands on her head in utter despair.

“Heechul,” she parroted back. “God-fucking-damnit.”

Officially out of patience, Solji snapped her fingers.

“Ladies, back here please,” she shouted. “Who is Heechul?”

Hyuna sighed, fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands and start screaming.

“Kim Heechul,” she began, “is a military contractor. He claims to be an independent third-party but he works very closely with the Cosmos government.” Sensing a question coming, Hyuna gave a preemptive answer. “Sometimes the government needs to get something shady done and they don’t want to get their hands dirty. They’ll call someone like Heechul and he’ll find a way to make it happen. Get it?”

“And how does he play into this?” Hyerin asked.

“A few days ago,” Hyoyeon said, “we found out about a file on Jeongbu. Like an old-fashioned, paper file in a manila envelope with important, Jiyong-related information inside. But when we tried to get it, someone had already taken it.”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Hyuna said, remembering the lengths they’d gone to breaking into that ship-turned-museum-turned-storage-facility. “But the gist of it is that Heechul was the one who swiped the file.”

“But not Heechul directly,” Hyoyeon said. “Turns out, he _also_ doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.”

“Meaning?” Solji asked and Hyoyeon bit her tongue to keep from saying something sarcastic. As it turned out, book-smarts and street-smarts were still two very different things and the girls of the Unity really didn't understand how the Cosmos actually worked.

“He wants to find Jiyong, too,” Hyuna explained. “Until now, I didn’t understand why. But rather than go boots-on-the-ground and look for Jiyong himself, he hired a crew to do it for him. This little blonde girl named Kim Taeyeon and her cronies, they’re the ones who went to Jeongbu and got the file. They’re the ones doing Heechul’s dirty work. He’s using his connections and resources to help them find Jiyong. What would happen after that, I have no idea.”

“Kim Heechul,” Solji repeated, reaching for a pen and a piece of paper so that she could write these names down, “and Kim Taeyeon.”

“No relation,” Hyoyeon deadpanned.

“There’s just one thing I still don’t understand,” Yuri said. “Why does the government give a shit about any of this? Why do they want the wormhole? Why does Heechul?”

Hyuna and Hyoyeon exchanged worried glances.

“I can’t say for sure what the government is trying to pull,” Hyuna said. “But Heechul…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged, looking troubled.

“What is it?” Solji asked, her eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you saying?”

“He’s a military contractor, right? He’s the type of guy who takes great stock in weapons and news ways to fight and win wars and do damage. He spends a lot of time on Byeongsa, working with new recruits and testing new strategies. He’s someone who wants to revolutionize the art of war. It’s how he gets his jollies _and_ how he makes his big bucks.” Hyuna stared back at Solji expectantly, waiting for it to finally click.

And when it did, Solji felt sick.

“He wants to weaponize the Berm,” she said quietly and suddenly, all eyes were on her, the rest of the crew sure they hadn’t heard her correctly.

“Think about it,” Hyuna said, not allowing a long enough pause for anyone else to speak up. “Think about Jiyong. Those max security prisons are no joke. He wouldn’t subject himself to that without a damn good reason. Think about the rest of his group. These are wealthy, educated kids hiding from the Cosmos on a shitty planet like Jaesan. Berm preservation is their life. They would risk anything to keep that wormhole away from people like Kim Heechul.”

“Weaponizing the Berm,” Moonbyul said slowly. “That goes far, far beyond just normal preservation debates, Hyuna. That could start a civil war. That could fucking end with nukes and shit. People could _die_.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know that, Moonbyul. Kim Heechul isn’t someone who fucks around and he isn’t someone you want to go toe-to-toe with.” She cocked her head to the side, looking contemplative. “Well, he’s not someone you want to go toe-to-toe with if you’re unprepared.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Solji asked.

Hyuna shrugged.

“Nothing yet.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Look, you wanted our help on Jaesan, right? Wanted us to help you track down this Seunghyun character?” Hyuna reached into her pocket and pulled out a memory chip. “On here is everything you need to know about Kang Daesung and Lee Seungri, two more guys in Jiyong’s group. We’ll go with you to Jaesan and we’ll help you find them. From there, we’ll just have to figure out the rest as we get to it.”

Taking the chip from her, Solji nodded.

“You okay bunking here?” she asked. “I’ll feel better if you’re on-board if we need you.”

Hyuna looked to Hyoyeon before nodding.

“As long as you have room for us.”

Elly felt like she was sinking in wet cement.

“Why are you so willing to help us?” Hyerin asked and Hyuna shrugged.

“The Cosmos is made up of some real shady fuckers,” she said. “They’re capable of shit you wouldn’t believe. It’ll be nice to feel like I’m working for the good guys for once.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “Plus we really just fucking hate Kim Heechul.”

“So much,” Hyoyeon said.

Solji nodded.

“Understood.”

“Now that all of that is taken care of,” Hyuna said, exhaling, her hand falling to cover her stomach, “you ladies have anything to eat here?”

Yoona lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Finally,” she said, “my time to shine.”

A little relieved that everything had gone so well, Solji laughed as she rose to her feet.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’ve got plenty. Come on, I’ll show you to your rooms while Yoona fixes you both a plate.”

Solji, Yoona, Hyoyeon and Hyuna left the dining room in a flurry of laughs and light chit-chat, as if the last hour (and the last two years) hadn’t happened and Elly felt a fresh wave of nausea hit her like a comet.

Here she was, so fragile, so weak, so broken up inside, and Hyuna was talking about dinner. Elly didn’t even feel like a _person_ , instead feeling more like a glass sculpture someone had shattered and tried fruitlessly to tape back together, and Hyuna was so goddamned polite and composed. She was so confident that it was almost _charming_. She was completely and utterly _fine_.

How could she be so fine?

She pushed herself off the wall, a little stiff and a little dizzy from staying so still for so long, and headed out the other door, trying to hide the tears that were suddenly streaming down her cheeks.

But she couldn’t hide them from Moonbyul.

Once she was gone, and once everyone else was busy working or engaged in conversation, she slammed her hand down on the table.

“God, I fucking hate this,” she said, looking to Sunny for guidance.

“She’s a big girl,” she said, not remotely the answer Moonbyul wanted to hear. “She can handle herself.” She looked up from her computer, catching Moonbyul’s eyes. “She’s going to be alright, Byul. I promise. This fucking sucks but I mean–” Sunny gestured to her computer, to the papers on the table and to the people all around them. “Fucking Kim Heechul and maximum security prisons and Berm civil wars,” she said. “This all just got a whole lot bigger than us.”

“So that means I can’t be pissed?” Moonbyul chided.

Sunny went back to typing.

“Be as pissed as you want,” she said, “but be productive while you do it.” She shrugged. “If you feel yourself getting off-track, just remember that sweet, sweet money. Maybe we won’t cash in the Cosmos’ bounty but I’m sure someone out there is willing to shell out serious dough to keep that Bermhole a secret.”

Moonbyul sighed and pushed her chair away from the table, pointing to the door from which Elly had just fled.

“All the money in the ‘verse won’t make it any easier to watch Elly go through this all again,” she said and, with another huff, left before Sunny could say something wise and maddeningly reasonable in response.


	11. Chapter 11

Sooyoung stretched her long legs before she stood up and then moved on to crack her neck, her back and the knuckles on both hands.

They hadn’t been in the air all that long (and Sooyoung hated the phrase “in the air” since it was scientifically inaccurate) but they’d had to circumvent an undocumented asteroid belt and that had taken longer than expected. Now that they were more-or-less in the clear, and now that it was a straight shot to Jaesan, Sooyoung figured she could take a little breather.

She peered down at Solji and a smug smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Solji was frowning as she stared down at her tablet. It was the one in the pink case, her personal tablet, the one that she used to communicate with the crew about things that didn’t pertain to work. Presently, she was reading through a series of rambling text messages.

The first set was from Elly. In it, the young captain was emotional, ranting sloppily about Hyuna in ways that Sooyoung suspected were meant to be subtle.

They were not.

The second was from Yuri, some less-than-appropriate questions about Yoona that might’ve made Solji laugh if she wasn’t currently spread so thin and grinding her teeth.

The third was from Hyerin, asking if Solji had noticed the way Solar and Moonbyul had been spending so much time together down in the engine room. If they were just working on the engine, why did they keep turning off their comm-system?

“Having fun?” Sooyoung asked, grinning.

Solji glared up at her, tried to think of something witty to say back, but eventually just grunted. No one onboard ever spent as much time with Sooyoung as Solji and, as such, they’d developed a very different understanding of her. The rest of the Unity crew saw Sooyoung as someone intelligent and calculated, someone awkward who excelled in the sciences but struggled with social interactions.

They weren’t entirely wrong but that still wasn’t the Sooyoung that Solji had always known. In the cockpit (and in the kitchen when they’d have breakfast together, or when the crew had a day off and they went exploring shops together), Sooyoung was comfortable and quick-witted. She had a sarcastic side that only Solji seemed to know about and she had a tendency to deadpan. She was brave, resourceful, well-read, an all-around excellent person with whom Solji had always felt privileged to share a ship.

She knew that the little Pandora-crushing incident on Cheoeum had shaken Sooyoung’s already precarious confidence but even in her infinite captain’s wisdom, Solji didn’t know how to help her get over that.

“Dyke drama,” she said, locking her tablet and shoving it away. “I swear, I’m a magnet. It even follows me into _space_.”

Sooyoung snorted and headed for the fridge they kept in the back of the room. More often than not, during flights, Yoona or Hyerin would check in on them to see if they wanted anything to eat or drink. But for those times when they didn’t want to bother their friends, they had their own stash.

“I seem to remember someone causing her own share of _dyke drama_ back in flight school,” Sooyoung sang arrogantly as she reached for a bottle of water. There was a box of LifeForce on the counter and from it, she pulled a pouch of orange-mango. Solji gasped in offense and Sooyoung laughed, ripping open the packet and pouring the bright powder into her bottle.

“First of all,” Solji said dramatically, “how dare you?”

“I also seem to remember,” Sooyoung went on, fastening the plastic cap so that she could shake up her drink, “a young girl named Tiffany Hwang who was just _so in love_ with this redheaded heartbreaker called Heo Solji.” Solji rolled her eyes, not enjoying this stroll down memory lane half as much as Sooyoung was. Undeterred, Sooyoung sat down and continued, “But this Heo Solji just could not be contained to one woman and so she played the fields.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“And then,” Sooyoung continued loudly, “there was this beautiful, brainy scientist named Choi Sooyoung who happened to share a room with this hot mess redhead who thought she was some kind of playboy. Sometimes Sooyoung would have to sit and do her homework in the hallway because Solji was busy with one, sometimes two girls. Other times, when Solji was out, this beautiful Sooyoung would have to console a distraught Tiffany Hwang, even though that was so _not_ her responsibility.”

Sooyoung paused to take a sip of her drink and Solji stared through her, face completely blank.

“Are you finished?” she asked lifelessly.

Sooyoung smirked.

“Just about, yes.”

“I’m not saying I was _perfect_ ,” Solji said, turning her attention to one of the screens on the dashboard. “I was young and horny and made bad decisions, sure. But I grew out of it.”

Sooyoung snorted.

“Sure,” she said. “When you met Hyerin, yes, you grew out of it. But these girls haven’t yet. They’re young and horny, too. And, evidently, not nearly as smart as we were back then.”

“At least I never brought my personal life onto the ship,” Solji said.

Sooyoung glared at her, amused.

“You mean other than that time you married our doctor?”

She cocked an eyebrow as she awaited Solji’s retort but after a beat, all that came was the redhead’s defeated scoff.

“Aigoo! You certainly have a lot to say today, Ms. Choi!” Solji’s tone, flustered and slightly offended, had Sooyoung bursting into belly laughter, something that was somewhat of a rarity inside the Unity’s cockpit. “How about you make yourself useful and check the landing conditions on Jaesan instead of busting my balls?”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Sooyoung once she’d caught her breath. She noodled around with the touch-panel in front of her and while she waited for the weather report to load, she looked backed to Solji. “All joking aside, though, good luck today. You, Hyoyeon, Hyuna and Elly all inside one rover?” She whistled, worried on Solji’s behalf. “That’s going to be rough.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Solji said, thinking of Hyerin’s gracious offer to sneak her some Xanax before she left. “Elly and Hyuna are both professionals. They’ll keep their shit together.”

“And Hyoyeon?” Sooyoung asked.

Solji chewed the inside of her cheek.

“Hyoyeon is a wildcard,” she admitted, “but she listens to Hyuna. It’ll be fine.” Sooyoung didn’t look convinced so Solji put on her best serious, professional face and said once more, “Really. It’ll be fine.”

Sooyoung nodded, conceding but only because some of the hardware on her side of the ship needed calibrating and she wanted to do it before they landed. Besides, if Solji was confident, so was Sooyoung. She didn’t think that Hyoyeon or Hyuna would do anything to outright sabotage their efforts to find Jiyong but she _did_ think that the tension between them and Elly would be enough to give Solji a migraine.

But, heck, sometimes that was just the life of a captain.

Down in the kitchen, Elly was living that same lesson.

She was trying not to regret her decision to tell Solji and the Unity about Hyuna, trying to remember that her personal pain was wholly unimportant in the grand scheme of things and that this was all for the greater good. But it was hard.

She’d woken with a knot in her stomach, just like she had the last three days in a row, and was forcing herself to eat breakfast in spite of it. It was going to be a long day and she needed her strength even if her heart was squeezing the life out of her appetite. Yoona seemed to notice this and take pity, asking Elly as soon as she entered the dining room what her favorite breakfast was so that she could make it fresh.

Elly liked Yoona. She could see why Yuri was so into her.

Now she was staring down at a plate of French toast, drawing circles in the syrup and wishing she felt good enough inside to enjoy it.

Today was going to suck.

On a ship as big as the Unity, she could spend the whole day hiding from Hyuna. In fact, so far, she’d been doing just that. But inside of a rover? Traveling together as a unit down the streets of Jaesan? There was no way for Elly to avoid the inevitable, pulverizing pain that was about to come her way and no amount of delicious breakfast food could save her now.

But sometimes, that was just the life of a captain.

Moonbyul entered the kitchen just as Elly was finishing her orange juice. From her usual seat, Yoona asked Moonbyul what she wanted for breakfast and Moonbyul just flashed her a charming smile and said that she’d take whatever was already on the stove.

Moonbyul took the seat across from Elly and smiled a smaller, more reserved smile before asking, “How’d you sleep?” It was a rhetorical question since Moonbyul already knew the answer but it beat sitting in silence. Since she knew Elly wasn’t going to answer, she added, “How’s the French toast?”

“Excellent,” Elly said and then pushed her plate at Moonbyul. “You have it.”

“You going to be okay today?” Moonbyul asked, accepting Elly’s fork.

“I won’t know ‘til I’m in that rover,” Elly said, smiling weakly. “How’s your new friend Solar?”

Moonbyul grinner, her cheeks growing pink as she poked at the bread on her new plate.

“I’m in love,” she said dreamily and Elly rolled her eyes, grinning genuinely for the first time in a month.

“You fall in love twice a week,” Elly pointed out but Moonbyul just waved her off.

“This is different,” she insisted. “This is real.”

“Whatever you say, Byul,” Elly said, smirking. “Whatever you say.”

Though she understood why Elly wasn't taking her especially seriously, it was true that Moonbyul felt differently about Solar than she ever had about anyone in the past. It was sudden and confusing and exciting and intense but now wasn’t the time to talk about it and Elly wasn’t the person to hear it. Once things calmed down, maybe she’d bring it up to Sunny and see what the older girl thought of her situation.

But just as quickly and as easily as their light-hearted moment had come, it was gone and Moonbyul could feel her chest tightening at how nervous Elly looked. All that pain and worry? It didn’t suit her. Moonbyul missed the way things had been before, missed Elly’s laugh and the confidence that sometimes bordered on arrogance. That had looked a hell of a lot better on her.

“What’s on your mind?” Moonbyul asked, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Elly frowned, pensive. She didn’t want to share what she’d been thinking about all morning but she figured that had to hurt less than keeping it all to herself.

“Why is Hyuna okay?” she asked quietly. “Why is she fine? _How_ is she fine? We were together two years, Byul. We loved each other. We really, really loved each other. And it all fell to shit and we went our separate ways and maybe we moved on but how can she just walk back in here and feel nothing?” She shook her head and reached for the napkin Yoona had given her, wishing it was paper instead of cloth so that she could rip it into pieces. “Seeing her is tearing me up inside and she isn’t even batting an eye.” She swallowed hard and shrugged her shoulders. “Why does she get to be fine when I’m not?”

Moonbyul wanted to comment that Hyuna was someone who was dark and twisted and not entirely human and, as such, didn’t have normal emotions but she knew taking potshots wouldn’t do Elly any good. Instead, she said something much more realistic.

“You don’t know how Hyuna is feeling inside,” she said calmly. “You don’t know _what_ she’s feeling. Hyuna has always been someone who took pride in her professionalism, in her stoicism. This is a very big deal to her, to Hyoyeon, to our crews and to the universe. She was always very, very good at burying her feelings, unnie. You know that.” She paused and reached across the table to touch the top of Elly’s hand. “You just make it through today and we’ll take it from there, okay?”

Biting her lip and trying to will away the lump forming in her throat, Elly nodded.

“Thanks, Byul,” she said. “If you marry Solar, I’ll make sure you mention this heartfelt moment in my maid-of-honor speech.”

Moonbyul snorted, letting go of Elly’s hand so that she could pick up the fork.

“ _If_ ,” she repeated teasingly. “Like there’s any doubt that that girl is going to fall for me any second now.”

 

* * *

 

Hyuna, Hyoyeon, Solji and Elly climbed into the rover without saying much of anything at all.

They’d docked on Jaesan without any issue and Solji had distributed orders to the rest of the crew so that everyone had something productive to do while the captains were away.

Then she’d handed the keys to the rover to Hyuna.

The ease with which she’d handed control over to Hyuna spoke to both the level of Solji’s trust and the degree of her ignorance and desperation – Solji didn’t know _shit_ about Jaesan and she didn’t have a choice but to rely on Hyuna’s know-how to somehow get them to Seunghyun.

The Unity’s rover seated four, and the seating that followed was almost inevitable – Hyuna and Hyoyeon took the front and Elly and Solji sat in the back, nobody saying a word as Hyuna started the engine and confidently steered them onto a main road leading away from the docking port.

The rover, a two-year-old, forest green piece of equipment that Hyerin had affectionately dubbed the Mantis, was a Class-C rover, meaning it was closed off and covered like a car rather than open and exposed to the elements like a motorcycle or ATV. Class-C rovers were permitted on main roads and state highways in the Cosmos but Solji had no idea about the traffic laws of the Jesamgi system.

Was it legal to drive the Mantis on a public road like this? Solji had no idea. And if there _was_ some law forbidding it, Hyuna either didn’t know or didn’t care.

Somehow, Solji suspected the latter.

And, fittingly, Solji didn’t care. Hyuna and Hyoyeon made their living walking the fine line between rebellious and incarcerated. If they were confident that they could charm their way out of a traffic ticket, so was Solji.

There were much bigger fish to fry anyway.

“So, Hyuna,” Solji said after they’d traveled five miles in silence. “Who exactly is it that we’re meeting?”

Solji didn’t know much about Jaesan or Hyuna’s plans once they were inside the city limits but she knew that they weren’t going directly to Seunghyun. There was someone that Hyuna knew, some fancy Jaesan connection, that would help get their feet in the door.

“His name is Lee Jinki,” Hyuna said casually, her eyes not leaving the road. “We go way back.”

Solji saw the way Elly flinched when Hyuna spoke. It was subtle, a slight balk that Solji assumed was purely a reflex, a physical response to the emotional turmoil the young captain was facing, but she forced herself to ignore it for the good of the day’s objectives.

“How did you meet this Jinki character?” Solji asked. She didn’t actually care but the tense, awkward silence was making her teeth itch. Better to fumble her way through mindless small talk than give herself a worse headache.

“Through a young man named Tao,” Hyuna replied, sounding almost proud, and Elly made a face.

She remembered Tao. She’d only met him a handful of times but he was a difficult man to forget. He had a unique look to him, his dark skin contrasting with his platinum blonde hair, his youthful face hardened with something deeply complex. When he smiled, he looked like an innocent college student. When he frowned (and frankly, that was just his resting face), he looked deadly.

And that was appropriate, Elly figured, because he _was_ just that.

Hyuna had always referred to him simply as her ‘weapons guy.’

When the Juggernaut girls needed new firepower, they called Tao. Somehow (and Elly had never asked about this), he was able to get his hands on any weapon in the universe. If you needed anything from face-melting plasma to black market nitrogen-blasters to good old-fashioned bullets, Tao was your man. If you could dream it up, Huang Zitao could find it.

And that, Elly had learned very quickly, was an incredibly useful resource, especially for two aggressive space bandits like Hyuna and Hyoyeon who sometimes acted without thinking.

But Elly didn't want to think about Tao. She didn't want to think about  _anything_ , especially not the fact that she was sitting right behind the woman she once loved, so close to Hyuna that she could smell the all-too-familiar scent of her vanilla body wash. It was bringing back too many memories -- mostly good ones that made her forget how raw the wound still was -- and she needed to focus on the task at hand.

“So that’s who we’re going to meet?” Solji asked, cutting through Elly's thoughts. “Jinki?” Hyuna nodded. “And where are we meeting him?”

“Someplace inconspicuous,” she said, glancing in the mirror to look back at Solji. “When it comes to doing business in Jaesan, it’s better to play it safe.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

Hyuna considered her words carefully and then said, “Meaning it’s better to assume that all walls have eyes and, in some cases, ears.”

“You never know who might be listening,” Hyoyeon expanded. She was staring out the window and, following her lead, Solji turned to peer out the tinted glass. But there wasn’t much to see. Jaesan boasted nothing drastically different or noticeable, nothing like the golden skies like on Geum Haneul or the purple seas of Misul. If anything, Solji thought it looked like a sandy, slightly dilapidated version of earth.

At present, they were riding down what looked like a main road with businesses, restaurants and the occasional apartment building bordering both sides of the street. There was a decent amount of graffiti covering parked trucks and brick walls but for the most part, Solji thought that Jaesan resembled any other inner-city. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting (before this trip, her entire knowledge of Jaesan was limited to two facts – it was smaller than any planet in the Cosmos system and its main export was silver) but this wasn’t it.

Out the windshield, Solji spotted a pothole that would’ve been big enough to cause hindrance had it not been for the Mantis’ newly-upgraded traction system. (Hyerin had mentioned something about under-funded and poorly-maintained Jesamgi infrastructure once but, as she had been getting undressed at the time, Solji hadn’t really been listening.) The original rover salesman, a fast-talking man named Leeteuk, had given Solji his card, saying to call him anytime she wanted something upgraded and so far, she’d made that call twice – once to upgrade the Mantis’ weapons system and once to level-up the tires.

After the installation had been completed, Leeteuk had assured her that this particular upgrade would enable the Mantis to drive on virtually any surface and, so far, that had been true. The Mantis had yet to encounter a terrain it couldn’t handle and, with a state-of-the-art navigation system, a fourteen-day supply of rations and two top-of-the-line plasma blasters mounted on the roof, Solji didn’t think very much could stop it.

And that was good because she had a feeling that there was still a lot standing between them and a comfortable resolution to all of this.

Another few minutes passed and Solji felt the Mantis begin to slow. Smoothly, Hyuna pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a rundown-looking shopping plaza. The land featured a laundromat, a bakery, a children’s clothing store, an investment bank and a mini-mart. Hyuna parked the Mantis in an empty spot outside of the bakery and then pointed to the far side of the lot.

“That way,” she said, answering Solji’s question before she could ask it.

No one said anything as they exited the Mantis and the natural separation continued with Hyuna and Hyoyeon leading the way while Elly and Solji stayed a few steps behind. There weren’t many people around – an elderly couple coming out of the bakery, a middle-aged man entering the bank and a mother pushing a stroller into the children’s boutique. Either it was a slow day for capitalism or this plaza wasn’t especially popular.

The Speedy Mart convenience store was the last business on this end of the mall and as they turned the corner, Solji made note of the green-and-gold paint splattered on the cracked brick wall. She wasn’t sure who the _Rattlers_ were but she assumed they were a graffiti gang and this was their turf.

Behind the mini-mall was a railroad track blocked only by a sagging chain-link fence, another example of poorly-kept infrastructure. But leaning against that useless enclosure was a slender man in dirty jeans and a maroon t-shirt. As he was caught up in a handheld videogame (Solji recognized it as a Dream-Pro 4, the same model that she always caught Yuri playing in the observation deck) but as they approached, he seemed to remember his purpose, stiffening as he shoved the game into the pockets of his pants.

“Hyuna,” he greeted, bowing once she was close. “Long time no see.”

“Jinki,” she said coolly. She looked him up and down, appearing neither impressed nor surprised with what she saw. “Staying out of trouble?”

He had narrow eyes and a wide nose, with messy dark hair and a bright smile made him seem younger than he probably was. Like Jaesan, Jinki wasn’t at all what Solji was expecting, but Solji still wasn’t sure how this could be since she hadn’t pictured anything specific in either case.

“Not really,” he said with a smirk. “Hi, Hyoyeon.” The blonde merely nodded in response, evidently not as friendly with Jinki as Hyuna was. The young man folded his arms over his chest and nodded to Solji and Elly, his eyes full of questions. “And who are these fine ladies?”

“Captains Heo Solji and Ahn Elly,” she said, “of the Unity and the Pandora respectively.”

Jinki’s smug smile transformed into a grin of curiosity and enlightenment as he began to say, “ _Elly_? You mean _the_ Elly? The one that you–?” Hyoyeon growled and took a menacing step forward, and that was enough for Jinki to get the hint and stop talking. He backed up further against the fence and cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you girls.”

Elly’s face burned red and she couldn’t decide if this flush had come from the rage and the embarrassment of Jinki knowing about their past, or the painful reminder of what she and Hyuna used to be. Whatever the reason, she hated herself for it.

“Yeah, same to you,” Solji muttered, her tone empty.

“What exactly can I help you with?” Jinki asked finally, his eyes returning to Hyuna.

“Remember that time Hyoyeon and I saved you and your boys from getting vaporized on Tujaeng?” Hyuna asked, grinning as she leaned forward ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, my friend, today’s the day that we finally cash in on that favor.”

Jinki seemed intrigued, his eyes widening and his jaw clenching as he stretched his neck and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Alright,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to speak with Seunghyun,” she said and then Solji watched the color drain from Jinki’s face.

He swallowed hard and then said, stammering and speaking way too quickly, “I-I don’t know why you’d think t-that I would even know that. I have no idea where Seunghyun is. He’s probably not in Jaesan anymore. Last I h-heard, he was–”

“Save it,” Hyuna said, raising a hand to shut him up. “I know he’s here, Jinki. We traced his emails to Jaesan and we know all his buddies live here. And I know that _you_ know where he spends his time. Jinki, it’s kind of, sort of catastrophically crucial that we speak to him as soon as possible.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jinki said after a beat, his voice hushed like he was suddenly worried that the yellow grass and rusted train tracks could hear his every word. “Seunghyun has a lot going on right now and even if I _did_ know where he was–”

“You do,” Hyoyeon interjected.

“-even if I _did_ ,” he maintained stubbornly, “there is no guarantee that I could even get you inside, let alone get Seunghyun to talk to you.”

Hyuna smiled a very unique, very specific smile and it was something Elly knew very well – pure arrogance. It was in Hyuna’s nature to confident but sometimes she took it to a little too far and talked a much bigger game than she’d actually be able to ever deliver.

And that smirk had always elicited complicated feelings inside of Elly. Her temples ached with annoyed anticipation as she tried to imagine what could come next. Her stomach twisted in remembrance of all the times that cocky attitude had gotten to them into trouble. And then, just a little lower, there was something that felt an awful lot like fire. Squeezing her legs together, Elly decided that she suddenly hated herself even more than she had that morning. (And at the time, that hand't seemed possible.)

“You leave that part to me,” Hyuna said, that mean smirk still pulling at the corners of her lips. “I just need you to get us there and let Seunghyun know that we’re not a threat.”

Jinki cocked an eyebrow and said, “Aren’t you?”

Hyuna laughed.

“Not this time,” she said. “It’s his lucky day.”

“We’re here to help him,” Elly said, startling everyone. It was the first time she’d spoken since getting into the rover and although her voice was shaky, her body language was strong and steady. “We know a lot of shit Seunghyun doesn’t and it’s important to him, to Jiyong and to everyone in both of our systems that we collaborate before shit hits the fan.” She moved her eyes from Jinki, glancing briefly at Hyuna before finally settling on Solji. “Things could get seriously fucked up if we don’t let him know what’s coming.”

“You think that the Cosmos System is a mess now?” Hyuna asked rhetorically, effortlessly picking up exactly where Elly had left off. For a split second, it felt like old times. If Elly closed her eyes, if she just listened to Hyuna’s voice and focused on the pounding of her heart, she may have been able to pretend that it was two years before and they were working a mission together. She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced back the rush of adrenaline and warmth that seemed to anchor her to the ground. “Trust me, Jinki,” she continued coolly. “It can get a whole lot worse.”

Jinki sighed and dropped his head, clearly defeated. He ran a hand through his messy hair and then peered up at Hyuna, his dark eyes almost apathetic.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he conceded. “Save it for Seunghyun. The man is a sucker for a good speech. I’ll take you to his club.”

It was Hyuna’s turn to be confused.

“His club?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” he said and grunted as he pushed himself off of the fence. “You have a rover, I assume?”

“Yeah but it only seats four,” Elly said. “It’ll be tight.”

Hyoyeon made a noise that fell somewhere between a snort and a scoff and then took it upon herself to break away from the group and head back towards the parking lot on her own.

“Maybe you can sit on Hyuna’s lap,” she quipped, a scurrilous remark that left Elly recoiling like she’d been slapped.

Solji had the strong and sudden urge to reach forward and grab Hyoyeon by the hair, yanking her back and forcing her to apologize, but the blonde was already too far ahead, her hips swaying victoriously as she headed towards the Mantis without another word.

 

* * *

 

The Black Pearl looked just like any other grungy music club in the universe but Hyuna knew better.

An unsuspecting hideout was one of the first things every law-breaking super-group needed. And Seunghyun’s crew had certainly taken that to heart. The Black Pearl was nothing you’d look at twice, brick-faced with peeling paint and an ugly neon sign with four letters completely burnt out. It was set back on a large parking lot, most of the blacktop cracked and eroded. The grass around the club was rotten and riddled with weeds, and one of the front windows had been shattered and patched up with wooden planks.

“It’s cozy,” Hyuna murmured as she pulled into the lot.

“Not exactly the word I’d use,” Hyoyeon remarked. Following a heated discussion outside of the Mantis that Elly and Solji hadn’t been able to hear, it ended up being _Hyoyeon_ sitting on someone’s lap – Jinki’s, in fact. They shared the passenger’s seat while Hyuna drove, taking careful directions from Jinki who seemed to be one speed bump away from unraveling.

“Just let me go in first,” he said, already sweating. “If Seunghyun and his guys think that something is up, anything at all–” He trailed off and shook his head, visibly troubled by the idea. But Hyoyeon just snorted.

“Why are you so afraid of these guys?” she asked. “They’re activists. _Hippies_. Isn’t their entire existence based on peace and love and unity?”

Although she couldn’t see his face the way she was sitting, Jinki glared at her.

“They’re activists but they’re thugs,” he said. “This isn’t Woodstock, Hyoyeon. This is deep fucking space and these guys really don’t like it when people try to bust up their shit.” He shook his head again and ran his fingers through his hair. “Seunghyun has been more than a little edgy ever since Jiyong got picked up and put away. He’s paranoid.”

“But Jiyong is out now,” Solji said from the backseat. “We’re supposed to assume that Seunghyun had nothing to do with that?”

Jinki peeked over his shoulder, looking at Solji like she was a grade-A moron.

“What, you don’t think helping break your best buddy out of Cosmos super-max prison is a good enough reason to be paranoid?”

“Fair enough,” she mumbled, tired. She had no interesting in sparring with this guy. He was too high-strung and whiny for her taste.

Jinki took a deep breath and then patted Hyoyeon’s thigh.

“Alright, cupcake, let me up before I lose my nerve.”

Solji thought Hyoyeon might react explosively to that but instead, the blonde just laughed, awkwardly shifting so that Jinki could slip out from underneath her and wiggle himself out the door of the Mantis.

The four women watched silently as Jinki adjusted his clothes, hair and posture before taking a deep breath and heading to the front door of The Black Pearl.

As soon as he was inside, Hyoyeon pulled a tablet from inside of her jacket and began typing.

“Checking for a security system?” Hyuna asked, her tone almost playful.

Like it always had been, this was just a game to them.

“And shutting it down if I find one,” she said. She peered back at Solji and Elly for half a second before devoting all of her attention to the screen. “We don’t have time to wait for Jinki to butter them up.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’re just going in the old fashioned way,” Hyuna said.

“No security system,” she said. “At least not the kind that I can hack into.” She looked up at Hyuna. “They probably have guards posted. Snipers, maybe. People can be more reliable than software sometimes.”

“ _Snipers_?” Solji repeated in disbelief.

“They probably only have shock-darts,” Hyuna said. “Not bullets.”

Solji’s expression was purely incredulous.

“ _Probably_?” Solji spat. " _Only_?"

“Worth the risk,” Hyoyeon and Hyuna agreed in unison.

Solji narrowed her eyes, the utter disbelief she was feeling manifesting itself as cold apathy.

“Is it, though?” she asked wildly.

But Hyoyeon and Hyuna were already clamoring out of the Mantis and gesturing for Elly and Solji to follow behind.

Elly shook her head, having seen all of that coming, and unbuckled her seatbelt.

Solji’s eyes went wide.

“You can’t possibly be going with them,” she gaped and Elly merely shrugged.

“Eventually,” she said with a sigh, “you get used to this.”

Solji made a frustrated noise, waited until Elly was a good fifteen feet away, and then reluctantly climbed out of the rover and jogged to catch up to her.

“I don’t _want_ to get used to this,” she said, huffing a little. “ _This_ is insane.”

Ahead of them, Hyoyeon had already thrown open the front door and was holding it open for Hyuna. A second later, she was gesturing impatiently for Elly and Solji to catch up and get inside.

“Maybe,” Elly said quietly, picking up the pace. In her head, she thought, _but they get shit done._

She didn’t have guts to say it out loud.

Instead, she slipped inside the club just as Hyoyeon let go of the door and tried to keep her distance.

Since Hyuna had been the first inside, she was the one that got the best look around.

It was a small club, nothing fancy or spectacular. It seemed like they were standing in some sort of lobby and the room branched off three ways. A staircase in the center of the room led up to what Hyuna assumed was an office. A closed door to the left, red and nondescript, blocked anything substantial from view and so Hyuna didn’t bother to guess what it was, but to the right sat an empty doorway that left a lot to be seen and subsequently studied.

It was wide, probably home to double doors at some point, but they’d since been ripped away to reveal a big, open room with dated furniture and a poorly stocked bar. There was no discernible theme, no apparent color scheme or style of decoration. In fact, it all seemed thrown together haphazardly, décor that favored functionality over aesthetics.

The walls were a mess, cracked and littered with what looked like bullet holes. There were messy patches of spackle spaced out in sloppy intervals that nobody had bothered to sand or paint over. The bar stools were crooked, all of them leaning dramatically to one side, the result of short, broken legs. The upholstery on the stools was a tacky, bright red and each one, without fail, was ripped in some way, white stuffing spilling out of the cuts and cracks like billowing smoke.

There were frames on two of the walls, some pictures and some documents, but Hyuna wasn’t close enough to make out any of the specifics. She wondered idly if they were genuine mementos (was Seunghyun the nostalgic type?) or if they were just there to cover up the structural wounds that spackle wouldn’t hide.

What she _could_ see, though, was a white board, the kind that they used in schools and business meetings before technology took over the ‘verse.

It was covered with a sheet, a very cheap and rudimentary security measure, but Hyuna could see three dry erase markers – green, purple and red – resting in the metal tray.

Across from the bar were two coffee tables and a faded navy couch. The tables were covered in what Hyuna recognized as planning supplies – folders, tablets, maps, blueprint, memory chips, energy drinks and takeout containers.

Seunghyun and his men were plotting something.

Hyuna took a step forward, just barely aware of the fact that Hyoyeon, Elly and Solji had joined her in the lobby, and that was when she heard the all-too-familiar sound of a blaster powering up. She’d just placed the high-pitched whine of plasma heating when she felt the barrel jam against her temple.

“Another step and the next stain on that wall will be your fucking brain matter.”

Hyuna swallowed.

She’d gotten so caught up in looking around that she hadn’t noticed the man – the _goon_ – hiding in plain sight near the stairs.

Rookie mistake.

“Hey,” she said calmly, making sure that her hands were visibly empty at her sides. “Take it easy.”

Her fingers actually _itched_ with the desire to disarm him, to have him on the ground with his own gun pointed in his face, but she refrained. It would be simple enough to take his weapon, to turn the tables and have him begging for mercy, but if she’d missed him, what else didn’t she see?

Or, worse and much more likely, _who_?

His buddies probably weren’t far and if Hyuna was going to die at the hand of some wannabe thug with a black market plasma blaster, she’d prefer to do it someplace other than Jaesan.

This planet _sucked_ and she deserved to die somewhere much nicer.

“Hey!” called the man whose face Hyuna still hadn’t seen. “We’ve got four more here!”

“Four?” A man’s voice, deep and loud, was coming from the open room. He sighed dramatically and then said, “Fuck. Alright. Bring them in here.”

Hyuna finally risked a glance back to the man with the gun to her head. He was average, nothing much to look at with wide eyes and shaggy brown hair, and as she was sizing him up, he pulled another blaster from the back of his pants.

Predictably, he pointed it at the other three girls and nodded his chin at the open room.

“You heard him,” he barked gruffly.

Hyuna sighed, gave a brief nod to Hyoyeon who looked ready to pounce and reluctantly led the group into the next room, her hands raised in a lifeless display of cooperation.

Hyuna hadn’t been able to see the front corner of this room from the lobby and that, evidently, was where all the people were.

There were four men altogether, including Jinki – a blonde and a brunette, both toting blasters and twin black t-shirts, and a tall, muscular redhead with big ears.

The redhead was holding Jinki against the wall – a foot off the ground – by this throat.

“Shit!” Hyuna said hastily, a reflex. “Put him down! Don’t kill him. Aren’t you people supposed to be pacifists?”

The redhead turned to look over his shoulder at them, an eyebrow cocked and his lips twisted into something that almost looked like a smile.

“You people?” he asked, offended.

“Activists,” said Hyuna.

After a beat, the redhead released his grip on Jinki and the smaller man fell to the ground with a dull thud.

“And how do you know we’re activists?” he asked over the sound of Jinki coughing on the floor. Subtly, he signaled for the blonde and the brunette to lower their weapons and they did, tucking them securely into the back of their pants the same way Staircase Guy had.

“We know a lot of things,” said Hyuna. She wondered for a second if anyone else had wanted to speak, if Hyoyeon had wanted to interject or if Elly wanted to let out her frustrations by dueling with a thug, or if Solji was a better wheeler-and-dealer than her sweet face suggested. But Hyuna, always a confident public speaker, just went with it. “We’ve been doing our homework.”

The redhead smirked arrogantly. He was smug, sure that the four petite women before him couldn’t possibly have any sort of edge on his squad. Anything they thought they knew had to be inaccurate, maybe even false information that he and the guys had planted themselves to throw nosy girls like them off the trail.

He was underestimating them and Hyuna had learned many, many years ago to use the ignorance of egotistical men against them.

“We know what this place is,” she said casually, lowering her hands now that she was confident nobody was going to shoot her. “We know what you’re all about, how you’re trying to protect the Berm from violent extremists and keep the peace. We even know about the– What did they call it again, Elly?”

Hyuna was only doing this for dramatic effect and Elly knew that – expected it, even – but hearing her name from Hyuna’s lips for the first time in two years hit her like a shock-dart to the chest. (And she knew from experience that those really fucking hurt.)

“The Bermhole,” Elly said after the initial agony had passed. She knew how Hyuna worked, understood the games that Hyuna played, and so, for the sake of the mission, she needed to step up and play along. “The wormhole leading to the Berm’s home ‘verse that no one is supposed to know about.”

The redhead’s face paled and little and Hyuna fought back a smile.

On the floor, Jinki had stopped choking and was now listening intently, his gaze moving between the redhead and Hyuna like he was watching a tennis match. 

“We know that you guys found it. And we know about Seunghyun. Or, as you guys probably call him, T.O.P.”

“Lame nickname, by the way,” said Hyoyeon, the only person Hyuna knew who would dare to be sarcastic and condescending with a blaster fixed on her chest.

“We know Seunghyun and Jiyong were tight and that you guys broke Jiyong out of super-max and that you stashed him somewhere. We know a whole lot about you boys and even more about your boss.”

Hyuna smiled and in spite of the ice storm raging in her stomach, Elly almost did, too.

Hyuna was bluffing. No one from the Unity, Pandora or the Juggernaut had found any sort of concrete connection between Seunghyun’s group and Jiyong’s escape from Keun Gamog, nor had they found anything out about any of the men currently in the room. Hyuna was an excellent liar and she had one _hell_ of a poker face. She could sell any story and from the looks on the faces of the three men before them, this was no exception. 

She was taking a risk and it was paying off.

Taking another long, deep breath, Hyuna eventually added, “But there’s a whole shit ton of stuff that you and Seunghyun don’t know and that’s why we’re here.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled innocently, laying on the charm the way she always did after a big speech. “We’re here to help. For the sake of the Berm and the sake of the ‘verse.”

The redhead licked his lips, his hands opening and closing into loose, anxious fists at his sides. Behind him, the blonde and the brunette were sharing an intense glare like they were trying to reach each other’s minds. Staircase Guy was squinting like he was trying to decide whether or not to lower his gun. Jinki was still on the floor, rubbing at the sore spot on the front of his throat.

A moment passed and then the blonde spoke.

“You were supposed to be on watch and five people got in here,” he said, his tone light as though he were making a joke. “Seunghyun is going to have your balls, Chanyeol.”

The redhead, apparently Chanyeol, scowled and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice from the doorway.

“I don’t want his balls. I have my own. They’re much bigger and made of steel.”

In perfect synchronization, everyone turned to seek out the source.

Hyuna immediately recognized him from the photos.

This was Choi ‘T.O.P.’ Seunghyun, hacktivist mastermind, in all his glory and the man was wearing a denim jacket. He wasted no time in joining the group and as he got closer, Hyuna tried to soak in as much as he could.

He was tall, dark and handsome, something Hyuna had already been anticipating from the pictures she’d seen of him. His dark hair was cropped short and styled neatly. Thick-framed, black glasses made his high cheekbones even more defined and his eyebrows were more precise than Hyuna’s.

There was something about him, something imposing but not exactly intimidating, that felt magnetic. His presence was felt rather than seen and Hyuna acknowledged immediately that she was not dealing with some low-level Berm supporter and an unregistered plasma canon.

Seunghyun was an equal.

As much as it hurt her pride to admit it, he may have even been a superior.

Because of this, she knew she’d have to play her cards right. With a player of this caliber, she couldn’t fuck around. She needed to pull out the big guns.

“Sorry to impose,” she she, volunteering to break the silence in an attempt to gain a slight upper hand. “We had information that we thought you really needed and we just couldn’t afford to waste time going through the proper channels.”

Her smile was bright, charming, only a degree or two away from being genuine. She couldn’t be sure whether or not she was Seunghyun’s type but her looks were too strong a weapon to keep holstered. She’d throw her hair, lick her lips and unbutton her shirt if she thought it would help.

At the very least, she was hoping that he found her cute enough to accept her winning smile as some gesture of peace.

He took another step forward, his full lips turning into a soft smile of his own, and reached out to slap Staircase Guy in the back of the head.

“Kyuhyun,” he said roughly. “Please lower your weapon. Is that any way to treat a lady?” Staircase Guy – Kyuhyun – looked sheepish and offended but did as he was told, lowering both of his blasters before tucking them away. “This,” said Seunghyun, “is why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

At that, the blonde and the brunette both snorted, and Seunghyun looked charmed that someone had laughed. He cleared his throat and took another step forward, offering his hand to Hyuna.

“Sorry for my boys,” he said. “They can get a little touchy.” He looked Hyuna up and down and then said, “What’s your name, beautiful?”

A wave of pure acid rose up in Elly’s throat and she swallowed it, trying not to grimace at the way it burned her up inside. It had been two long years since Hyuna had been anything other than the rugged captain who broke her heart but she still didn’t want anyone – not even some bossed-up Berm-lover – calling her beautiful.

Maybe she was petty like that. Maybe she'd always been the jealous type.

“Kim Hyuna,” she said, her tone fake and coquettish as she shook his hand without her usual iron grip. Better for him to underestimate her the way the rest of his squad had.

Something about this answer seemed to please him.

“You’re Korean?” he asked. Hyuna nodded and a puzzling grin spread across Seunghyun’s face.

What followed was a conversation in smooth, rapid Korean, though Hyuna had barely noticed the language change. She was just as fluent in Korean as she was in English so it sometimes didn't register when she was switching between dialects. 

In fact, almost everyone else in the room seemed wholly unbothered by the switch, their heads bobbing with a comfortable, comprehensive understanding of the words being spoken.

And then there was Elly.

Yes, her parents were Korean. And yes, she’d even spent two years attending flight school in Seoul. But neither of those things changed the fact that Elly could barely speak the language. Her parents had never aggressively encouraged her to pursue it and the Jido Flight Academy? It had been the most prestigious flight school in the world, hosting students from the United States, China, France, Australia – everywhere. The primary language in every class had been English, meaning the only Korean that Elly had needed to learn was basic survival stuff.

She could introduce herself, ask directions to the nearest hospital, inquire about the price of a train ticket, and order a whiskey sour but beyond that, she was pretty much helpless.

It had been five years since Elly had spoken anything other than English, and Seunghyun and Hyuna were speaking so quickly. Her eyes bounced from one to the other, occasionally picking up on a word here or there but mostly just struggling to make any kind of sense of what was going on.

“You say you have information we need?” Seunghyun asked, his arms folded neatly across his broad chest. “What type of information? And, more importantly, what makes you think we don’t already have it?”

“If you knew about any of this,” Hyuna countered seamlessly, “you wouldn’t just be sitting around.”

“What makes you think we’re just sitting around?”

“You’re planning something,” Hyuna said, gesturing to the board and the coffee tables, “I’ll give you that. But there’s a man on your trail, a man with great resources who’s capable of starting some serious shit, and if you knew the first thing about him, you’d quit planning and start _acting_.”

Seunghyun smirked.

“Please tell me, Kim Hyuna, how one acts without planning?”

Elly was completely lost, squinting as she scoured her brain for some hidden nuggets of knowledge and wishing that she hadn’t been so dense to the surrounding culture in flight school. She’d been so buried in tests and diagrams and flight labs. When exactly was she supposed to find time to learn conversational Korean? How could she ever have foreseen something like this?

Lucky for her, Solji was both observant and generous. She noticed the change in Elly’s body language, the way her head was cocked and her forehead creased, and stepped forward to assist. Solji, having been raised in Seoul by two Korean-American parents, had no trouble translating. She spoke quickly and quietly, adeptly paraphrasing the conversation and highlighting the important pieces that Elly was missing.

Not wanting to interrupt, Elly simply reached up and squeezed Solji’s shoulder, a silent gesture of gratitude.

But Hyuna was observant, too. She saw what was happening, the squinting and the translating, and suddenly remembered that Elly didn’t know the language. No sooner had the realization hit her than she raised her hand, cutting Seunghyun off mid-sentence.

“Speaking Korean drains my energy,” she lied. “Can we do this in English instead?”

Subtly, Seunghyun followed her eyes. After a beat, he conceded. His English was heavily-accented but otherwise perfect and if anything, his desire to speak Korean seemed based more out of homesickness and nostalgia than anything else.

Hyuna guessed that he simply missed Korea.

“This man,” Seunghyun said, “the one with the great resources. Tell me about him.”

Elly seemed relieved by the switch back, her entire body relaxing visibly when Seunghyun began speaking English, but Solji couldn’t shake the bad taste in her mouth. In her eyes, there was something just slightly manipulative to Hyuna’s motives, something just a little weird about Hyuna deciding what Elly could comprehend and what she couldn’t.

But Solji was begging herself to stay out of Elly and Hyuna’s drama, pleading with her better judgment to let them hash it out without getting involved.

But that was harder than it seemed.

Hyuna thought of Kim Heechul and sighed heavily.

She was getting awfully tired of talking about this sadistic ginger but if it was for the good of the ‘verse…

“Mind if I sit?” she asked, motioning to one of the couches.

“Please do.”

As soon as she was seated, she launched into her spiel, starting with how she’d first come into contact with Kim Heechul six years ago and ending with the way he was using a crew of trackers to hunt Jiyong down and keep his own hands clean. The middle was filled with sordid details and horror stories as Hyuna tried to accurately portray Heechul’s character. She wanted Seunghyun to understand that Heechul wasn’t just your average wannabe supervillain.

Heechul was the type of guy who would knowingly and guiltlessly start a ‘verse-wide civil war to boost his status and pad his pockets.

She spoke of his connections, dropping names of infamous Cosmos higher-ups that Seunghyun was sure to recognize. She told tales of his malice, his spite, his greed and, most dangerous of all, his charm. She told them all about the depth of his pockets and the severity of his reach, pausing briefly to accept a bottle of water from the brunette and to let Hyoyeon interject with a story highlighting just how loyal the Cosmos government was to him.

If Heechul told them to jump, the Cosmos tended to as how high. Then they gave him a big cash bonus for his honesty.

“And this man is after Jiyong,” Hyuna said when she was sick of telling stories. “He will stop at nothing to find that wormhole, the _Bermhole,_ whatever.”

For the first time since Hyuna began speaking about Heechul, Seunghyun softened.

“We don’t call it the Bermhole,” he said. He, too, had eventually chosen to sit, deciding on the coffee table furthest from the couch “We’ve always called it El Dorado.”

Hyuna didn’t question that and Hyoyeon didn’t bother making a snide remark. Instead, they just nodded, tired of this, tired of Heechul, tired of Jaesan.

“Heechul will literally do anything possible to get to it,” Hyuna continued. “And I mean anything. And if he succeeds–”

“And at this rate,” Hyoyeon interrupted, “he _will_.”

“–it’ll be catastrophic to everyone in the galaxy.”

It was silent for a while.

Seunghyun stared down at his hands, pensive. Chanyeol and Kyuhyun looked on-edge like they still weren’t sure whether or not they’d need their blasters after all. The blonde and the brunette continued to gawk at each other with some comfortable, wordless connection and Jinki just looked dumbfounded, an almost-innocent bystander who’d gotten caught in the crossfire.

Hyuna wanted to look back and gauge the mood of the three other girls but she didn’t want to look back at Elly and risk cracking her own composure. In these tense moments, it was easy to push her feelings to the side and _work_ but she couldn’t just forget that it was Elly standing only a few feet behind her.

That was _her_ Hyojin.

But it wasn’t worth the risk and so she stayed focused, keeping her eyes on Seunghyun.

Seunghyun, though, wasn’t the one who spoke up and shattered the silence.

“If you know all this,” Chanyeol said suddenly, this deep voice booming off the crumbling walls of The Black Pearl, “if you know so much, just how the fuck are we supposed to trust you?” His eyes were wide with accusation, his tone frantic. Clearly he’d used his quiet time to jump to conclusions. “You expect us to believe that _you_ weren’t hunting Jiyong? That this is just some big coincidence?” He scoffed and blew a few strands of red hair out of his eyes. “Bullshit.”

Seunghyun glanced at Hyuna, his expression as readable as a magazine. He didn’t condone Chanyeol’s outburst but he had to agree that the guy made an excellent point.

“It’s complicated,” Hyuna said after a beat. “We _were_ after Jiyong, all four of us, but that was–”

“I knew it!” Chanyeol barked. “You’re a bunch of fucking scammers.”

He reached for his blaster but Seunghyun cut him off, standing and swearing loudly in Korean.

“Let the woman finish,” he ordered sternly and Chanyeol shrunk back.

“Some things didn’t make sense,” Hyuna continued, overlooking the fact that he’d almost drawn on them again. “While we were looking for Jiyong, a lot of things didn’t add up. The size of the bounty, the charge of treason. Once we dug a little deeper and put it all together, our priorities changed. It stopped being about the money and instead became about doing the right thing for the ‘verse.”

Seunghyun’s perfect eyebrows rose.

“So that’s what it was about?” he asked. “The money?”

Hyuna swallowed.

“It was about revenge,” she said quietly, her eyes low and her fists balled in her lap. “When I was a kid, the Cosmos threw my father into super-max, the very same place they sent your pal Jiyong, and left him to die. He was suspiciously murdered by two guards who claimed he'd lunged at them. After that, they took my mother, a former government employee, mind you, and questioned her about what my father had done. When she wouldn't talk, they charged her with treason, and then they killed her, too. I ended up in one of the many orphanages on Daedosi.” She peered up at Seunghyun, her dark eyes narrowed and filled with something impenetrable. “And that was _hell_." She licked her lips, trying to shake off the sting of those memories. "If the Cosmos had any idea who I was, if they had any idea who my father was, if they knew what I did for a living, they’d never let me be a pilot. I really just wanted to find Jiyong so that the Cosmos would have to fork over a hundred-million dollars to someone they didn’t realize they despised.” She looked into Seunghyun’s eyes, hopeful that her sincerity was clear. There was a softness there in the darkness, an understanding. “Believe me, oppa. If anyone wants to expose the Cosmos for the murderous fucking snakes that they are, it’s me.” She licked her lips. “You can trust us.”

Solji bit her lip.

Elly and Hyoyeon had known Hyuna for a very long time and, as such, they’d already known those sad stories. They felt the dull ache of sympathy, the twinge that came along with knowing someone you loved had been through so much. But to Solji, these horror stories were fresh, and as shocking and upsetting as they were, she thought they explained a lot about Hyuna’s personality.

“I still don’t trust her,” Chanyeol said indignantly and Hyuna smiled. She in inched up to the edge of her seat and crossed her legs, her body language changing subtly.

Elly recognized the look on her face.

She’d been tracking each and every one of Hyuna’s moves, almost comforted by how well she knew her ex-girlfriend.

Hyuna had turned on the charm at first, flirting and being respectful to lower Seunghyun’s defenses. She’d told long, easily corroborated stories to impress him, to prove her wisdom and her knowledge. She’d shared a personal story to bond them and then even played the Korean card, using _oppa_ to flatter him and make them feel like old friends.

But now it was time for the big guns.

Now it was time for her to put her money where her mouth was.

Hyuna pointed to the whiteboard.

“You’re planning something,” she said. “The next phase of your grand scheme, right?” Seunghyun didn’t answer. “Based on the blueprints and the maps I’m seeing, I’d say you’re looking for something. Something you need before you can move on to the next step, maybe.” She opened her arms, gesturing at herself and the other girls. “Let us do it.”

Solji paled. Seunghyun looked surprised but impressed.

“You’re bluffing,” Chanyeol said blankly.

“I’m not,” said Hyuna, her expression steely. “Look, fellas, we need to figure this shit out. We’re on your side here. Whatever you’re trying to do, we’re in. Whether that’s hiding Jiyong or sealing up the Bermhole or what, you need to do it fast. You’re running out of time. Whatever you need done, we can do it faster. I’m telling you that Kim Heechul is your number one threat and I promise you he’s moving closer every second. If you don’t act fast, he’s going to win and things are never going to be the same.”

She took a deep breath and leaned back, stretching so that her arms ran across the back of the couch. She was dead serious, a force to be reckoned with. Between her blood red lipstick and her high-heeled boots, Kim Hyuna was a vision of confidence and ferocity. She was going up against some of the galaxy’s biggest players and she wasn’t fazed. There was ice in her veins and iron in her heart and Elly remembered suddenly and vividly exactly what it was that Hyuna’s arrogance and toughness had always done to her.

For the first time that afternoon, everyone in the room was thinking the same thing – Hyuna had already won.

“So,” she said, her tone dripping with power, “what’s it gonna be?”


	12. Chapter 12

“Hyuna?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have, like, I don’t know, a plan or something?”

There was a pause. Hyuna lowered her binoculars.

“I am working on it,” she said bitterfly.

Solji glared at her, more irritated than disbelieving. She wasn’t in disbelief – she could _believe_ all of this. Her life had been nothing but trouble since Hyuna and Hyoyeon had walked into it. (Technically, it had been trouble ever since they’d crashed into the Pandora but she was willing to look past that for her moment of pouting.)

All four of them were laying in the dirt, behind a row of bushes, atop a hill on Gangcheol. From left to right, it was Elly, Solji, Hyoyeon and Hyuna, and the latter was wracking her brain trying to come up with a way to get inside the factory without raising any red flags.

Because that was Gangcheol – factories, steel mills, industrial parks. The planet was one big assembly line, a big, dusty rock set aside to manufacture building blocks for the rest of the Cosmos. Hyuna had been here a few times before but she didn’t like it. Expectedly, the whole planet reeked of oil and burning rubber. Pollution was a serious problem and clear skies were a thing of the past.

While the sun still managed to shine through, the planet was cloaked in a smoky haze, though Gangcheol’s government vehemently denied any accusations about poor air quality. Whenever Hyuna was on Gangcheol, she felt like she was choking on a perpetual cloud of toxic gas. But Gangcheol was, without a doubt, the most important planet in terms of the significance of their exports and without Gangcheol, the rest of the Cosmos System would crumble and fall.

Hyuna still wished she’d brought a facemask.

When Seunghyun had explained his plan, and mentioned Gangcheol by name, Hyuna had fight a grimace. But, as the saying went, beggars didn’t get to choose. Seunghyun and his crew needed a key. Hyoyeon assumed that he’d meant a cypher, something to crack a code or help hack into a security system but, no, it turned out they needed an actual _key_ , a little jagged metal thing to open a lock.

Humanity had advanced so far in math and science and there were people who still used things as obsolete as traditional key-locks.

Whatever. Hyuna had figured that Seunghyun was an old-school kind of guy anyway.

The key, Seunghyun explained, would be used to unlock a safety deposit box on Gachug, a farming planet that was basically the Cosmos’ leader in outdated techniques and procedures. The whole damn planet was obsolete, choosing to use technology and ways of life that had gone out of style hundreds of years before.

Presently, the key they needed was on Gangcheol, in a rubber factory, inside someone’s locker. If it helped, Seunghyun had said, they knew the locker number.

“So why don’t you just go in and get it?” Hyuna had asked him.

“We can’t risk raising any eyebrows,” Seunghyun told her. “We’ve got reason to believe that this factory is being watched. We need to get in quietly and peacefully, and make off with the key like we were never there.”

“So why not just pretend to be a worker?” she went on.

Seunghyun had smiled wryly at her. She really must have thought they were stupid, like they hadn’t already considered this problem top-to-bottom and suggested every single solution imaginable.

“It’s a popular company,” he said, “but it’s still a mom-and-pop factory at heart. It’s small. Everybody knows everybody. If you don’t belong, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb and you _definitely_ won’t be granted unsupervised access to the employee locker rooms.”

Hyuna bit her lip.

It would be tough but, hell, she liked a challenge. Beyond that, she was arrogant. She had more faith in Hyoyeon, Elly, Solji and herself than she did in Seunghyun and his men. Maybe _they_ couldn’t figure it out but Hyuna and the girls would be able to crack it, no question.

Unfortunately for all involved, it was turning out to be a lot more difficult than Hyuna had anticipated.

Halin Rubber _was_ a popular brand. Hyuna recognized the name from pieces that she had on-board the Juggernaut. But, like Seunghyun had said, it was still run like a small business; these people all knew each other.

It was a beautiful day on Gangcheol – well, as beautiful a day that could exist under a dangerously smoggy sky – and several Halin employees were helping load pallets onto a truck. Others were doing just the opposite, unloading transport trucks and taking inventory on what had been delivered.

Halin Rubber’s specialty was, very obviously, rubber, but Hyuna was pretty sure that they’d branched out to some paper and plastic products, too. She couldn’t think of anything specific, and she couldn’t remember when or where she’d heard about their expansion, but she immediately ejected those thoughts from her head since they wouldn’t help get her any closer to that freaking key in locker 114.

This was going to be harder than she thought.

The ease with which the employees interacted spoke directly to their comfort and familiarity with each other. If a stranger tried to get through the bright yellow double doors that led inside the factory, they’d be met with questions and unease, especially if that stranger looked as much like a grungy space smuggler as Hyuna. (Most of the time, she didn’t care that she looked like a ne’er-do-well but in cases like these, she found it problematic. Since neither was used to jobs like these, she didn’t fully trust that Solji or Elly could pull it off. And Hyoyeon looked even more naturally sinister and provocative than Hyuna did.)

They’d need some kind of ruse to get inside but truthfully, Hyuna couldn’t think of any. She was usually pretty quick on her feet, years of unscrupulous activity forcing her to get very good at improv, but that day, she struggled. She figured it could be any number of things – the pessimism from Seunghyun, the way the fate of the universe and the fate of the Berm might have been resting on her shoulders, the fact that the love of her life now hated her guts and was laying only five feet to her left.

Whatever it was, she just couldn’t get all the pistons in her brain to fire.

They’d been laying in the dirt for the better part of an hour when Solji finally spoke up and questioned her. Although it was complicated, Hyuna had to admit she liked Solji. In a lot of ways, Solji reminded Hyuna of herself. She was ruthless, driven, someone who would do anything for her crew.

But right now, she was just pissing her off.

“And here I thought you were a super badass space criminal who had the answer to everything,” she muttered, swatting at a beetle that had crawled too close to her arm.

“And here _I_ thought you were the goody two-shoes daughter of a millionaire music mogul who would never, ever get into this sort of illegal activity,” Hyuna countered shortly, shooting Solji a brief, irritated glance. “Shit happens, Captain.”

Solji grumbled something vulgar and went back to what she’d been doing for the last fifty-four minutes – ripping up blades of grass and arranging them in a neat little pile.

Hyuna went back to thinking, ignoring the way Hyoyeon was staring up at her like she was waiting for something to just _happen_ suddenly. Maybe they could find a back entrance. They’d still have the issue of being seen and identified (or, unidentified, as it were) by the employees but at least they’d have a chance. Maybe if they had security cameras, Hyoyeon could hack them. She’d be Hyuna’s eyes. If someone was coming, Hyuna could just duck into a bathroom or a supply closet. Maybe if they…

“You can pretend to be a supervisor,” Elly said suddenly, the sound of her voice sitting Hyuna square in the chest like she’d been kicked. “Or, I guess, an inspector. Someone from the Cosmos, someone checking on safety regulations. They wouldn’t recognize you but they’d let you in and give you access to whatever you wanted if only because they were afraid you’d give them a citation otherwise.”

Hyuna had heard Elly’s voice more than once during these last few days but this was the first thing she’d said so far that was actually directed at _her_.

This was the first time Elly had spoken to her in two years.

Hyuna was too dumbfounded, too effected by it to think of anything to say back, instead choosing to stare blankly at her like Elly had just started speaking fluent Russian.

“They’d ask for ID,” Hyoyeon said, breaking the tension and pointing out the obvious flaw in Elly’s plan.

Elly huffed, blowing the hair out of her face.

“I’m sure you could come up with a temporary fix,” she said. “Hack into their system. When they scan Hyuna’s ID, or her fingerprints, make it say that she works for the Cosmos Department of Regulations.”

At the sound of her name on Elly’s lips, Hyuna nearly doubled over.

The truth was that Elly had had this idea almost immediately. It seemed very obvious to her, very simple. She just really hadn’t wanted to speak up. The initial shock and horror of seeing Hyuna again had more-or-less worn off but there was still a very present, very real ache. It was duller now, not the sharp, unbearable stake in her chest but a low hum of pain, something she felt all over her body. Still, it was something she could suppress, something she could cope with. It was relentless but not debilitating and even though it made Elly viciously nauseous to think about talking to Kim Hyuna after all this time, it became clear around the half-hour mark that Hyuna had no idea what to do next.

Elly had spent the next twenty-four minutes working up the courage to say her idea out loud.

Hyuna, still stunned by this turn of events, spent another half-minute just blinking and trying to process what she was hearing, but when it all clicked in her brain, she gave a very small smile.

“That’s a great idea,” she said and stopped before she added _Elly_ or _El_ or some cute nickname that came reflexively even after all this time apart. Forcing her feelings down into the scary depths of her being, Hyuna looked over at Hyoyeon. “Can you do that?”

“Already on it,” Hyoyeon said. She had one of her computers, the smallest laptop she owned, in front of her and her hands were moving at lightning speed. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

“In the meantime,” Solji said, “you should probably go back to the ship and get changed.” Solji pushed herself up so that she could sit and Hyuna did the same, frowning as she looked down at her clothes. In an old band t-shirt and leather pants, she didn’t look very much like an officer of the CDR.

“Good point,” Hyuna said. She tried to picture her closet, tried to think if she had anything remotely professional that she could wear, but nothing sprang to mind. She stood up, brushed the dirt and dust from her pants and cracked her back, an old habit that Elly knew well. She nudged Hyoyeon with the toe of her boot, lovingly. “Work hard. I’ll make myself pretty and come back as fast as I can.”

“Take your time,” Hyoyeon said, not looking away from her screen. Solji glanced over Hyoyeon’s shoulder, watching letters, numbers and characters fly by and not understanding a word of it. “Once I have your fake ID programmed in, it’ll be smooth sailing.”

Hyuna nodded.

“You two keep an eye out,” she said to Solji and Elly. “I don’t suspect anything interesting will happen but just in case, keep your eyes peeled.” Solji nodded.

“Roger that,” she said, offering a mock salute. “Consider them peeled.”

Hyuna took two steps back before stopping and biting her lip. It had only been a few seconds but the words burning in her throat made it feel like hours.

“Elly?” she said and Elly looked up, her expression blank but her heart shredding.

“Yes?”

“Great work.”

She turned on her heel and took off towards the Juggernaut without giving Elly a chance to respond.

Elly didn’t have anything else to say anyway.

 

* * *

 

Hyoyeon looked up when she heard footsteps in the dirt and turned just in time to see Hyuna approaching.

She narrowed her eyes, trying to make her brain understand what she was seeing.

She didn’t even know Hyuna _owned_ a red pantsuit.

“You look like a realtor,” she said.

Hyuna had washed her face, applied new makeup and straightened her hair, too. Gone was her thick eyeliner and bright red lipstick. Now she looked feminine and professional, the type of woman who the Cosmos would trust with the safety and reliability of Gangcheol’s many factories.

That was an amusing thought.

“You think I’ll pass for a safety inspector?” she asked, smoothing the wrinkles out of her pants with the palms of her hands.

“You’ve got the look,” Solji said, nodding. “Are you a good liar?”

Elly laughed out loud, a short, harsh burst of humorless amusement that sounded cruel but came completely of its own volition.

“Don’t worry,” Elly said. “She is.”

Hyuna looked hurt, but only for a second. She felt like she’d been slapped but didn’t have time to be offended, that key in locker 114 calling to her. The perpetual chemical smell of Gangcheol was burning her noise and she wanted to be back on her ship and back in the sky as soon as possible. She could swallow that comment the way she’d swallowed every hurt look and purposeful avoidance of eye contact so far. She was becoming very good at compartmentalizing.

“Lying is the easy part,” she said, fumbling with her sleeves. She was primping to avoid looking at Elly, focusing on tiny, unimportant details so that she didn’t get too wrapped up in her own head. If she paid too much attention to Elly, she’d get distracted and something would go wrong. And none of them could afford for something to go wrong. “Are we all set?”

Hyoyeon nodded.

“I put a temporary wall up around your ID page,” she explained. “You won’t have a CDR badge for them to see but they can scan your fingerprints. You’ll pop up as Boo Jaekwan, thirty-year-old Cosmos Department of Regulations employee. And, for good measure, I hacked their shitty, out-of-date network and back-dated an event on their calendar. Whoever’s at the front desk will see an inspection scheduled for today.” Hyoyeon looked pleased with herself. “You’re all set, kitten.”

Hyuna grinned.

“Thanks, unnie.” She gestured down the hill, towards the factory that was still atwitter with productivity. “I guess I’ll get at it, then. You three can wait back in the ship if you want. This shouldn’t take long.”

“I’m gonna stay here,” Hyoyeon said. “Just in case something goes awry.”

Hyuna’s resounding nod was one of gratitude. Hyoyeon always had her back.

“I’m going to stay, too,” Solji said. She grunted as she tried to make herself comfortable but it wasn’t really possible against Gangcheol’s packed dirt. “No offense but I don’t like your ship.”

Hyuna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Briefly, she looked to Elly but Elly didn’t say a word. Hyuna took that to mean that she’d be staying with Solji. Elly hadn’t known Solji very long but she’d grown attached to her, the stress of trying to save the universe _and_ seeing Hyuna again having accelerated their bond.

“Hurry,” said Hyoyeon, waving her hand in front of her face like she was clearing something from the air. “All this asbestos is starting to hurt.” Hyuna nodded and started towards the edge of the hill but Hyoyeon stopped her. “Take the long way, kitten. Make it seem like you’re coming from the parking area, not like you were sitting up here, staking them out.”

“Huh,” Hyuna said. “Good point.”

She took off in the other direction, doubling back to where cars and rovers were parked in excess.

“What would she do without me?” Hyoyeon teased under her breath.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t very hard to get inside.

There were no security measures in place at the door, though Hyuna had figured that. It was a big company that still operated like a small business, and mom-and-pop stores rarely splurged on big, bad security systems. When everyone knew everyone, what was the point?

There was a man behind the front desk no older than Hyuna, and his collared shirt was the same bluish-grey color as the jumpsuits worn by the employees. His dark hair was parted neatly to one side and the nametag on his chest read _Leo_.

“Hello!” he greeted cheerfully, straightening up in his chair. He’d been doing something on the computer but looked away from the monitor when he heard the door. “I’m Leo! How can I help you?”

“Hi,” Hyuna said, smiling brightly. “My name is Boo Jaekwan. I’m with the Cosmos Department of Regulations. I’m here to do your bi-monthly safety review.”

Leo looked surprised.

“Yeah?” he said.

“It should be in the computer,” Hyuna said, leaning over the counter a little so that she could pretend to glance at the screen. “I mean, if this is a bad time, that’s fine. But I’ll have to write it in my report…” She trailed off dramatically, painting an expression of mild concern across her face.

“No, no, no!” Leo countered quickly. “Let me just double-check. Sometimes the weekend receptionist puts things in the calendar and forgets to tell me.” He looked back to the screen, typed something, and this eyes went slightly wide with understanding. “Ah! There it is. Sorry about that!” He rubbed sheepishly at his neck. “I’m kind of new here,” he went on, “so I don’t know what these evaluations entail. Should I call my boss?”

“No need,” Hyuna said smoothly. This guy was so eager-to-please that she didn’t think he’d even take her scans. Hyoyeon would be pissed she did all that work for nothing but it was always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. “You just give me a security badge that’ll get me onto the floor and into the electrical rooms and I make sure you nice folks are up to code.” She punctuated it with a smile that Leo returned easily.

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He pulled open a desk drawer and, after some shuffling around, produced a laminated security badge. “This will get you where you need to go.” He looked her up and down, surveying her. “You don’t need a clipboard or something?”

Shit. She’d forgotten about that.

“It’s all digital,” Hyuna said slyly, gesturing at the expensive smart-watch on her wrist.

She wasn’t even sure what that meant – would that require her to _speak_ her notes directly into her watch? – but Leo accepted it without further question.

“Right,” he said. “Of course. We’re a little old school here. Sometimes I forget the rest of the Cosmos is so far ahead.” Grinning, he ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, you go ahead and do your thing. If you need anything, let me know!”

Hyuna thanked him and disappeared down the first hallway she saw.

It occurred to her suddenly that she had no idea where this locker room was. She looked to her watch, about to shoot a frantic message to Hyoyeon, but Hyoyeon was, as always, a step ahead of her, having already sent a message of her own.

_Northeast hallway. Go towards the cafeteria. It’s around the corner, left-hand site. Employee Locker Room #1. Yellow door. You can’t miss it._

She almost sent back a message of gratitude but decided not to waste any time.

She followed the signs on the walls and the lines on the floor until she reached the northeast corridor, nodding politely at employees who passed by. Everyone seemed nice enough, diligent factory workers who helped keep the Cosmos up and running. They were all friendly, all clean-cut, clean-shaven and Hyuna couldn’t help but wonder why she was here of all places.

Seunghyun hadn’t told her the specifics, hadn’t told her why this key was here on Gangcheol, why it was here inside a rubber factory, why it was inside someone’s locker. He hadn’t told her how it had gotten there or how he knew where it was. Other than making it clear that this key was a priority and that it opened a lockbox on Gachug, he hadn’t told her anything at all.

But it was very obviously important. This key, and whatever it unlocked, was somehow tied into all of this. In the grand scheme of things, it was significant, tied in with Jiyong and the ‘verse-wide manhunt and Seunghyun’s group and the Berm and the wormhole and the overall balance of the motherfucking universe.

Hyuna was just curious what any of it had to do with a rubber factory on Gangcheol.

She’d been walking on auto-pilot as she pondered the divine order of things and suddenly, yellow, slightly faded double doors appeared before her. She completely abandoned her train of thought and pushed through them, not even considering that there might be employees inside.

She got lucky – the locker room was empty.

From there, it was just a matter of finding the right locker, finding the key and getting the fuck out of dodge. This all felt way, way too easy. Something was bound to go wrong and sticking around meant tempting fate.

The lockers were numbered sequentially and Hyuna came upon locker 114 in just a few seconds. (She almost laughed when she thought back to the Entity, how difficult it had been to dig through random filing cabinets looking for a single folder.) Moving quietly, she lifted the handle and pulled open the door, surprised to find the locker full of personal effects. When she thought about it, she realized it was silly. Of course it was in-use. Was she expecting it to be empty, with only the key sitting in the middle of the metal cubby, waiting for her?

Frankly, she hadn’t been expecting anything. 

Pushing that all aside for later, she dug around, looking inside of a ripped lunch box, a faded backpack and a plastic bag that was filled with gym clothes.

“Come on,” she mumbled, shoving her hand inside of the hooded sweatshirt hanging from the hook, “where the fuck–?” Her hand touched something cold and metallic. The key. She grinned as she pulled it from the fleece, inspecting it carefully.

It was a key alright, shiny and completely nondescript. For good measure, she checked every other possible crook and crevice twice. She needed to be sure that this key was _the_ key. Seunghyun wouldn’t be a happy camper if she’d brought back some poor sap’s house key and all of this would have been for naught.

But, lo and behold, it was the only key inside locker 114 and so Hyuna was pleased.

She looked down at her pantsuit. Her _pocketless_ pantsuit.

But then she smiled again and reached for the waistband of her bright red pants, pulling it down slightly to reveal the navy blue fabric of her panties. Who would’ve thought a gag gift from her good friend Huang Zitao would have come in handy?

Actually, she had. Hyuna was resourceful, someone who could find use for anything. Tao had given them to her as a joke, a pair of panties with a small, easy-to-conceal pocket on the front. He said it was something that every “sexy space smuggler” should have on-hand and Hyuna had laughed and hugged him, amused and impressed by his ingenuity and sense of humor.

She was sure Tao never meant for them to be used practically but Hyuna never liked to waste a good opportunity. Grinning, Hyuna slipped the key inside the pocket, adjusting her pants just as someone came through the double doors and joined her in the locker room.

“Hello,” said a man with a scar beneath his eye. “Who are you?”

“Boo Jaekwan,” she said pleasantly, gesturing with her security bade, “with the Cosmos Department of Regulations.”

“Is it inspection time already?” he whistled, heading for locker 106. “Hey, since when do you guys check locker rooms, too?”

Hyuna bit the inside of her cheek.

“The conditions of employee locker rooms are every bit as important as the safety and upkeep of machinery, sir,” she said. “Would you say your bosses make cleanliness and safety a top priority when it comes to employee spaces?”

Flustered, the man gave a very thorough, very positive answer but Hyuna wasn’t listening. When he was done speaking, she smiled, shook his hand and thanked him before excusing herself and ducking out of the doors.

She had the key and nobody had any idea she wasn’t a Cosmos crony. It was a successful mission and now she needed to get the hell out. She walked calmly and quickly to the service entrance, repeating the same words over and over again inside of her head; this had been much too easy.

Back on the hill, though, things were not quite as simple.

“Star-fucking shit,” Hyoyeon mumbled under her breath when a blinking notification on-screen broke her focus.

“What?” Solji asked, looking over at the screen. “Star-fucking shit, _what_?”

“We’ve got a problem,” Hyoyeon said. She scooped up her laptop and scrambled to her feet. “Look alive, ladies. We have to skedaddle.”

“Skedaddle?” Solji demanded. “Skedaddle where?”

“Back to the ship,” Hyoyeon said. “Someone is coming. _Landing_ , I mean. Someone else is landing. We need to move before they do.” By now, the other girls were on their feet. Hyoyeon looked to Elly. “Hey, Hyojin, you remember how to drive the Juggernaut?”

Though she was damn-near _offended_ by the use of her real name, Elly nodded. She'd flown it before, once upon a time.

“I remember,” she said.

“Great,” said Hyoyeon. From her pocket, she produced the keys and tossed them underhand to Elly who snatched them easily from the air. “Let’s get a fucking move on.”

 

* * *

 

By the time Hyuna had exited the factory and scaled the side of the far side of the hill, the Juggernaut was nowhere to be found. But that didn’t bother her much. Her watch had a tracker that was connected to the ship, kind of the space smuggler equivalent of an old timey thing called LoJack, and with a few easy swipes, she had clear directions back to her beloved Juggernaut.

Elly had flown it just about a mile away, tucking the Juggernaut behind a rare expanse of trees that made it significantly less visible from the sky. She cut diagonally into the forest until she reached the side entrance and used her watch to unlock the door. A minute later, she was back inside the Juggernaut where she was met with three worried gazes from the women in her cockpit.

Hyuna cocked an eyebrow.

“What I miss?” she asked, not sure she really wanted the answer.

“We have a problem,” Hyoyeon said.

“What kind of problem?” Hyuna asked, getting closer.

Hyoyeon gestured to one of the monitors on the dashboard and then pressed a series of buttons on the keypad. An image appeared. Onscreen, another ship had landed in the dust of Gangcheol, only a few hundred meters from where the Juggernaut had been parked. Outside of the ship, which was half the size of the Juggernaut and grey with green trim, was a petite blonde woman in a black jacket.

Hyuna gaped at the screen.

“Is that–?”

“Kim Taeyeon and the Termite,” Hyoyeon said numbly.

Hyuna was too flustered too respond with words and instead replied with something between a grunt and a growl. She watched the woman onscreen carefully, knowing damn sure that Taeyeon and her crew were here for the same reason they were – to get the key.

The Termite had beaten them to Jeongbu, and to Taeyong, and had made getting that folder ten times harder. Somehow, Heechul had gotten them the information first.

But this time, Hyuna had gotten there first, if only just barely. She had the key, which mean Taeyeon, and, therefore Heechul, didn’t, and that was satisfying. But it wasn’t nearly enough.

They couldn’t do any of this with the Termite on their trail, nor could they constantly be playing catch-up if Taeyeon and her crew happened to get to these places first. What had happened on Jeongbu was a fluke – it wasn’t likely that there’d ever be duplicates again. If it was a matter of finding _something_ (or, in the very literal sense, _someone_ ), there would only be one. And things were hard enough without them having to compete with the Termite.

And universe wouldn’t survive if Kim Heechul got his hands on the wormhole.

So that left Hyuna with two options – either she had to get Kim Taeyeon and the Termite on their side, or she had to eliminate them as a threat.

Since both of those options required swift and immediate action, Hyuna peeled off her bright red coat and turned to Hyoyeon.

“If we’re going to do this,” she said, sure that Hyoyeon had already reached the same conclusion she had, “we need to act now.”

“Way ahead of you,” she said. “I was planning to hack their system and cut their power as soon as Taeyeon made a move for the factory.”

“If we’re quick enough,” Hyuna said, “we won’t even need to do that.”

Hyoyeon nodded, already on her feet.

“Wait,” Solji said. “You lost me. What’s happening?”

Hyoyeon and Hyuna ignored her, lost in a world of their own, so Elly answered.

“They’re going to take Taeyeon,” Elly said.

“ _Take_?” Solji demanded. “What do you mean take?”

“I need that little girl’s crew to listen to what we have to say,” Hyuna said. She was sitting on the floor, changing from her nice red shoes to the boots she used for work. “And I think taking their captain hostage is a great way to make them listen, don’t you?”

Solji’s face paled as she tried to find the words to say to voice her disgust with this plan.

“Can it, Red,” Hyoyeon said, raising a hand to silence her before she’d even fully started speaking. “You can hit us with your moral objections later. Right now, we need to hurry or we’ll lose our chance. Just a fucking reminder, since it seems you’ve forgotten, Solji, but the fucking universe kind of depends on this.”

“Elly,” Hyuna said, forgetting all about their past and their baggage for the sake of the job, “can you help? I don’t know how many crew members she had but on a ship that small, I’d say no more than four. It would really be a fuck of a lot easier if we had an extra pair of hands.”

“No,” Solji said. “There’s no way she’s going to–”

“Yeah,” Elly said. “I’m in. Do you have an extra blaster?”

Hyuna nodded.

“This way,” she said, gesturing to the entrance. “But hurry.”

They disappeared out the door before Solji had a chance to object.

“Make sure no one gets on this fucking ship,” Hyoyeon said, slapping Solji’s shoulder harder than she’d needed to. “Fly away if you have to.”

And then she was gone, leaving Solji in the cockpit of an unfamiliar ship on an unfamiliar planet, hoping against hope that this afternoon wouldn’t end with a hostage situation.  

 

* * *

 

“Did Heechul say what this key was for?” Hwasa asked, joining Taeyeon in the dirt outside of the Termite. She grimaced slightly when the burning, chemical smell of Gangcheol hit her nose.

Taeyeon shook her head.

“Heechul and I seem to be on a very need-to-know basis with information,” she said. “Mostly, he doesn’t think I need to know anything and just expects me to wing it.”

Hwasa snorted.

“And that’s okay with you?”

Taeyeon shrugged.”

“For the money he’s offering,” said Taeyeon, “I’m willing to make myself okay with a lot.”

That was only half-true. There was a lot about Heechul that made Taeyeon nervous, a lot of what he asked for making her feel shady and uncomfortable. But they needed a new ship. If Taeyeon wanted to keep her crew and keep her job and keep her life the way it was, they needed a new ship.

She was willing to make a lot of sacrifices to keep her family together.

She was still a little unnerved, still unsure of just what she was getting herself and her crew into, but she trusted her instincts. Right now, it was okay. Right now, she was just helping someone find Jiyong. Everyone was looking for Jiyong. What made Heechul any different?

(Taeyeon knew in the back of her mind that there was something big and dark that made Heechul very, very different but she just couldn’t bring herself to think about that. Not yet.)

“So how are we getting this key, boss?” Hwasa asked, putting her hands on her hips as she looked down the hill at the factory.

“Charm our way inside, probably,” Taeyeon said absently. “And make it up as we go along.” She looked over her shoulder at Hwasa and smiled. “Same as always.”

Hwasa smirked.

“What we do best, honestly.”

“Can you do me a favor?” Taeyeon asked. “Can you check the rover and make it's gassed up and ready to go?”

“You expecting trouble?” Hwasa asked and Taeyeon grinned.

“I’m just playing it safe,” she said.

Hwasa gave her a salute and disappeared around the side of the Termite. Having no extra storage space on-board, they kept the rover inside a pull-down hatch near the emergency generators.

Once Hwasa was gone, Taeyeon started thinking again.

What was it that Heechul wanted so badly with Jiyong? Why was he willing to pay more than twice the Cosmos bounty? Jiyong had been tried and jailed for treason, whatever the hell that was, and with a charge that vague, he’d probably made a lot of enemies. But what was it about Heechul that made Taeyeon’s skin crawl? What were his intentions and why did they throwing up all these red flags in Taeyeon’s mind?

She forced herself to think of other things, focusing instead on how she was going to get this key from a bustling factory, but she couldn’t help her mind from wandering. Feeling dizzy with the stress of her own deep analysis, Taeyeon shook her head and remembered Hwasa.

“Hwasa!” she called. “What’s taking you so long? Aigoo. Kids these days, always slacking.” She took off the way Hwasa had gone, rounding the back of the ship and angling herself towards the hatch. “Did you get lost or did you just–?” She gasped so sharply that it made her chest ache.

A tall stranger had her arm around Hwasa’s neck and a blaster pointed to her head. Hwasa looked angrier than anything else but Taeyeon couldn’t mistake the fear in her eyes.

“Hi,” the woman said, her tone almost bright.

Taeyeon opened her mouth to say something but she was silenced by the sound of a blaster powering up. Less than a second later, she felt it against the back of her head.

“Kim Taeyeon,” said the voice of a stranger, and a chill ran up Taeyeon’s spine. “My name is Kim Hyuna, and I’d like to have a word with you.” A third woman, this one blonde and dressed in leather, appeared with zip-ties in her hand. “We’re going to tie you up and take you back to our ship and then you’re going to tell us everything you know about a man named Kim Heechul.”

Taeyeon swallowed hard. She met Hwasa’s eyes and the two exchanged a knowing look.

Of course this was about Heechul.

No wonder she couldn’t get him out of her head.

She really _did_ have good instincts.

“But first,” said the woman with the gun to Hwasa’s head. “How many other people are on your ship?”

Taeyeon considered lying, considered refusing to answer, but that blaster against Hwasa’s temple was awfully persuasive.

“Just two,” she said quietly.

“Very good,” said Kim Hyuna. In another half-minute, the blonde had Hwasa and Taeyeon bound and the taller woman pushed Hwasa away, obviously content that she was in no position to fight back.

Clearly, they no longer viewed Hwasa and Taeyeon as a threat.

“Elly and Hyoyeon,” said Hyuna. “Go get the other two. I’ll be out here with our new friends.” The women, Elly and Hyoyeon, nodded and headed inside the Termite, and Taeyeon felt nauseous. Hyuna, her blaster still fixed on them, noticed. “You look a little green, Taeyeon,” she said mockingly. “Not feeling too good?” Taeyeon ignored her. Hwasa was pissed, trying her best not to speak up and get herself shot, but Hyuna wasn’t paying her any mind. “Oh well,” she said. She gestured with her blaster while she spoke, her attention elsewhere, like taking two hostages wasn’t the most exciting part of her day. “I don’t feel all that bad for you.” There was a commotion inside and Taeyeon looked away, trying not to worry too much, and trying not to burst into tears. Hyuna just smiled cruelly, pleased with the karmatic balance of things. “That’s what you get,” she said quietly, “for making a deal with the devil.”


	13. Chapter 13

Solji hated this part of the story.

She hated it so much, in fact, that when she went on to tell it in the future, she skipped over this part entirely, choosing instead to act like it never happened.

She hadn’t been remotely okay with Hyuna, Elly and Hyoyeon taking the members of the Termite hostage. She’d been entirely against taking them back to the Juggernaut for questioning and, as Hyuna called it, safekeeping. She voiced her objections with Elly flying the Termite back to Jaesan while the Juggernaut, and their hostages, followed behind. And she’d damn near had a stroke when Hyuna instructed Taeyeon and the other three members to clamor out of the Juggernaut and climb onboard the Unity instead.

But she’d been outvoted at every turn.

Who knew this shit-show had somehow become a democracy?

Solji was pacing in the corridor outside of the gym which had been commandeered as one of two holding rooms. That’s where Hwasa and Taeyeon were, both zip-tied, both seated, both staring at Hyuna and Hyoyeon like they wanted them dead.

The other two Termite crew members – an engineer named Amber and a tech girl named Krystal – were being held down the hall in the library with Elly and Sooyoung as their assigned guards.

Hyerin was sitting on the floor, watching Solji walk back and forth and muttering to herself in Korean.

“So,” Hyerin said after a few minutes passed like this. “I take it things didn’t go exactly according to plan.”

“This is insane,” Solji mumbled. “This is totally insane. Hostages, Hyerin. We have _hostages_. We kidnapped people! There are four kidnapped hostages onboard my ship!”

Hyerin huffed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

“Well,” she said, “I guess if it’s for the good of the–”

“Please don’t say it,” Solji groaned. “Please don’t say it’s for the good of the universe and that we’re saving the Berm and keeping bad guys from the wormhole. Just…” She trailed off, stopped pacing and took a deep breath. This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t ever the plan. This wasn’t the type of captain she was. This wasn’t who her father had raised her to be.

Completely and utterly dejected, she sank down to the floor, sitting so closely to Hyerin that their shoulders touched. She wanted to rest her head against Hyerin, wanted her wife to hold her and tell her that everything was okay, but she didn’t think she deserved the comfort.

She let this happen. She was the one to decide the Unity would throw their hat in the ring and look for Jiyong. She was the one who should have been in the cockpit when Sooyoung crashed into the Pandora. She was the one who agreed to team up with Hyuna and Hyoyeon. She should have fought harder to keep them from taking the Termite girls.

She should have tried harder.

Maybe none of this would have happened if she’d tried harder.

Maybe it all happened because of her.

She didn’t deserve the comfort, but she wanted it.

And Hyerin, like always, seemed to read her mind.

“Don’t do that,” she said softly. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m just thinking–”

“No,” Hyerin interrupted. “Don’t lie to me. You’re sitting here torturing yourself. And I get that. I get why you’re going there. But Solji?” She reached out and took Solji’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. “This isn’t on you. This goes so much deeper than you, than any of us. I don’t know what it was that got us here, be it fate or destiny or just plain bad luck, but we’re here. We’re in the thick of it. We know stuff that no one else in the Cosmos knows. We know about Heechul. We know about Seunghyun. We know about the Bermhole. Maybe we shouldn’t be here but we are. We’re here. And we need to make the best of it.”

“What if there is no best of it?” Solji asked miserably. She’d only allow herself to be this vulnerable in front of Hyerin. To everyone else, she had to be the leader, the captain, the person that kept them together and afloat. But to Hyerin, she could just _be_. And right now, she couldn’t be anything other than a woman wallowing in deep self-pity. “What if we were fucked from the very beginning and there’s no way out? What if there’s no way to win?” She looked up and caught Hyerin’s eyes, immediately warmed by the compassion and the support she found there. “This is bigger than us, Hyerin. Way bigger. This is some deep conspiracy shit. This isn’t something that we know about. It’s not even something the Juggernaut girls know about. How did we get here?” She shook her head, trying to think of something more articulate to say, but ultimately just repeated herself. “How did we get here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hyerin said gently. Solji had given in and rested her head against Hyerin’s shoulder, and Hyerin was running her fingers through Solji’s hair. “How we got here is now officially irrelevant, Solji. What matters is where we go from here.” She gestured to the gym where it seemed like Hyuna and Hyoyeon were getting somewhere with the Termite girls. Taeyeon was speaking and it didn’t look like she was yelling or arguing. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know how we’re going to find Jiyong. I don’t know how we’re going to keep Heechul from finding the Bermhole and ending life as we know it. What I _do_ know, though, Solji, is that those two girls in there have the information we need. I know that taking hostages wasn’t part of your five-year plan as a pilot but this is where we are. This ship needs a leader and that leader is you. So you need to get up and go in there and help Hyuna explain to Kim Taeyeon that Heechul is a super villain and that we need their help.”

Solji nodded along with every word Hyerin spoke, committing every syllable to memory like it was the word of God. Hyerin always had a confidence about her, something that made the things she said seem like absolute fact. Solji had known from day one that Hyerin was smarter than her, and Hyerin’s intelligence was something she admired deeply. Where Solji could get lost in her own swirling darkness, Hyerin saw things so clearly.

It was part of what made them a great team.

“I’m scared,” Solji admitted and Hyerin leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“I know,” she said. “I am, too.” Solji forced herself to sit back up, needing to look into her wife’s eyes to ground herself before she sprung back into action with Hyuna and Hyoyeon. “But I’ll be sitting right here when you get done and we’ll figure it out together. Okay?”

Solji smiled sadly, forcing down the lump in her throat.

“Okay,” she said and then climbed to her feet. She took a deep breath, adjusted her clothes and nodded once. Then she extended her hand to Hyerin, pulling her up so that she could wrap her arms tightly around her and breathe in her perfume.

This was about the hardest thing Solji ever had to do but with Hyerin in her arms, and with Hyerin on her side, she felt like she could pull herself together and make her proud.

It was amazing what a simple embrace could do.

When Solji pulled away, Hyerin was smiling and she touched her hand tenderly to Solji’s cheek.

“I love you,” she said, a simple fact, something fixed and true like math and science.

“I love _you_ ,” Solji countered.

Then she turned on her heel and headed to the gym that was now nothing more than a holding cell.

* * *

It took Hyuna and Solji six hours to convince Taeyeon and Hwasa to betray Heechul and take their side.

That was how Solji would go on to tell the story.

It took Elly and Sooyoung, meanwhile, nine-and-a-half hours to convince Amber and Krystal, but Elly would go on to blame Sooyoung for that, saying that she was too awkward and didn’t convey the level of confidence necessary to incite Stockholm Syndrome.

By hour nine, Solji just let Taeyeon and Hwasa go in and convince Amber and Krystal themselves.

Taeyeon and Hwasa were reasonable women. They were pissed about being taken hostage and demanded to know where Amber and Krystal were, but they were reasonable women. Taeyeon especially seemed almost eager to hear what they’d found about Heechul, almost like she’d had a suspicion that she needed confirmed. Hwasa was cautious, asking questions and speaking carefully, but Solji could tell that she was intrigued.

Ultimately, they had had Sunny and Yuri come in to share the details and dirt they’d dug up on Heechul. They had receipts – pictures, documents, videos, paper trails. They spoke about his background, his profession, his probable intentions. Uneasily, they even talked about the Bermhole.

It was a calculated risk. If Taeyeon and Hwasa refused to help them, their knowledge of the Bermhole would be incredibly dangerous. But Solji had an inkling that if Taeyeon knew what they were fighting for, she’d be significantly more likely to jump ship. If she knew how dangerous Heechul was, if she knew what he was after, she wouldn’t be so willing to do his bidding.

And she was right.

That, at the end of it all, was the thing to break Taeyeon’s silence. Once she understood the Bermhole and what it was Heechul was after, she sang like a canary, guilt radiating off of her in waves.

She’d genuinely had no idea what Kim Heechul was up to and it was clear to Hyuna, Hyoyeon and Solji that she felt terrible about helping him.

When Solji told the story, she didn’t go into detail. She didn’t talk about the long, emotional conversation with Taeyeon or how Hwasa admitted there was always something off about Heechul. She didn’t talk about the way Taeyeon read through Yuri’s typed summary of Heechul’s background five times in a row, absorbing every detail, or how Yoona came in after hour four and brought them all dinner. She didn’t talk about what went on when Taeyeon was finally allowed to go see Amber and Krystal, nor did she discuss how goddamned stubborn Krystal was. (Amber was willing to fold somewhere between hours two and three but Krystal was made of pure fucking steel until Taeyeon talked her down.)

No, when Solji told the story, she skipped right ahead to the video-chat with Seunghyun where Hyuna had to explain that they’d recruited Kim Taeyeon and the Termite and needed to know what the hell to do next.

“Did you get the key?” Seunghyun asked. Solji didn’t recognize the room in the background and figured it might be whatever room had been upstairs at The Black Pearl. Seunghyun was seated in a large desk chair and Chanyeol, the trigger-happy redhead, was beside him.

“We got the key,” she confirmed. “I’ll have Jinki bring it by. Are you listening? I said we have Kim Taeyeon, Heechul’s errand girl.”

Seunghyun nodded, his face serious.

“I heard,” he said. “That’s good. I’m impressed. Did she tell you anything important?”

“She did,” Hyuna said. “I’ll include a copy of our new file with the key, but I feel like you’re not really registering the significance of this. Taeyeon has switched teams. She’s with us now. How do we use her against Heechul? How does this help? Why don’t you care?”

Seunghyun sighed.

“I’m sorry. I do care. It’s a big deal and a big step forward. Things have been very busy here. We’re working on our next step.” He looked stressed out. Hyuna, Hyoyeon, Solji and Elly were in the cockpit of the Unity, all staring up at the screen as Seunghyun rubbed his face with both hands. “The key will unlock the safety deposit box on Gachug and that’s where we’ll find the other half of the tracker.”

“The tracker?” Elly asked.

“It’s a long story,” said Seunghyun. “To keep Jiyong absolutely safe, even we couldn’t know exactly where he went after breaking out of jail. We helped him escape but he fled on his own. He has a very special, very unique galaxy-wide tracking device so that when we _did_ need to pick him up, we’d know where to find him. The other half of that device is in the lockbox on Gachug.”

“So you’re finally picking him up?” Hyuna went on.

“Yes,” said Seunghyun. “That’s the plan. We need to pick him up and deliver him to the wormhole as soon as possible but…”

He trailed off, looking troubled.

“What is it?” Solji asked.

“We don’t know if we can do it in time,” Chanyeol said, speaking up for the first time. “Gachug is at the complete other end of the Cosmos. And the wormhole, well, it’s not close.” It wasn’t wasted on Solji that Chanyeol wasn’t willing to give away any details of the wormhole’s location, even now when he knew he could trust them. “We don’t have a ship that moves that fast.”

“What’s the rush?” The question came from Elly. “Is there a specific date you need this done by?”

“Sort of,” Seunghyun said sheepishly. “It’s complicated. By this time next week, one of the Cosmos’ famous mapping-ships will be passing right by the wormhole.” Solji nodded. The Cosmos had a whole fleet of starships with the set purpose of mapping out the universe. They wandered, almost aimlessly, taking photos and videos and notes so that the Cosmos had a better understanding of their system. “Ideally, we’d like Jiyong inside of the wormhole and in the Berm’s home ‘verse before that happens. But, like Chanyeol said, we won’t be fast enough.”

“I think it’s time you tell us, oppa,” Hyuna said, “where the Bermhole really is.”

Seunghyun bit his cheek. He shot an apprehensive glare to Chanyeol who simply shrugged at him as if to say, “You’re the boss. It’s up to you.”

“Let’s just say for now,” Seunghyun said, rubbing the back of his neck, “that the wormhole is between the Cosmos and the Banseong system.”

Solji pictured the known universe in her mind. They were in Jaesan, the first planet in the Jesamgi system. She supposed one could think of the thee systems as a set of three circles. The Banseong system was the one on the left, the Cosmos was in the middle, and the Jesamgi was all the way on the right.

Gachug, meanwhile, was one of the Cosmos planets closest to the Banseong system and, subsequently, the wormhole.

Basically, it wouldn’t be a short flight.

“Even flying as fast as the Juggernaut could take us,” Hyuna thought aloud, “we wouldn’t make it in time.”

“We’d need a significantly faster ship,” Solji continued.

“We’ll use the Termite,” said Taeyeon, her voice appearing from nowhere. They all turned in time to see Taeyeon entering the cockpit, looking surprisingly well-rested for someone who’d been held captive the last twelve hours.

“Who let you out of the gym?” Solji asked.

“The one you call Yoona,” she said. “I told her I had to go to the bathroom.” She gestured to the monitor. “Seunghyun, I assume. Hi, I’m Taeyeon. I hear you were looking for me.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance,” he said.

“My ship is incredibly fast,” she explained. “It’s small but it’s fast. If things went well, we could probably be at the wormhole within five days.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“That quickly?”

“As long as you’re willing to pay,” she said, “I’m willing to offer up my crew’s services.”

“Now, wait just a damn minute,” Hyuna interrupted. “Your ship sleeps four, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, little lady, it wouldn’t be  _your_ crew that would make the trip. It would be us.” Hyuna gestured to the other girls in the cockpit.

“The hell it wouldn't,” Taeyeon said. “It’s my ship and it’s my _fucking_ rules.”

Hyuna raised an eyebrow, equal parts impressed and irritated by this outburst.

They started to bicker but Seunghyun knew they didn’t have time for this.

“It should be the four captains,” Seunghyun said, speaking over the commotion. “If the ship sleeps four, it should be Hyuna, Elly, Solji and Taeyeon. The more pilots, the better. You can work in shifts because you all know how to fly. That’s the only logical formation. And, Taeyeon, to address your concern, you will be compensated handsomely, though I doubt I can pay you the same wages as Kim Heechul.”

It was silent for a moment.

“Are we really doing this?” Elly asked quietly, her head spinning. “Are we saying that the four of us are going to get into the Termite, fly to Gachug, get the tracker, find Jiyong and then deliver him to the wormhole?” She looked up, glancing from Taeyeon to Solji to Seunghyun onscreen. “Is that what we’re signing up for?”

“What do we do about Heechul?” Taeyeon asked. “He’s still going to be calling me and giving me breadcrumbs and trying to find Jiyong himself. If he knows that I’m helping you and helping Jiyong escape, he’s probably going to murder me _and_ my crew.”

“You let us worry about Heechul,” Hyoyeon intersected suddenly, gesturing to herself and to Seunghyun.

Seunghyun seemed pleased by that answer.

“Are you four in agreement, then?” Seunghyun asked. “You’ll do this? If we give you all the coordinates and all the help and all the resources we have, will you help us save Jiyong and save the Berm ‘verse for good? Will you help us end this?”

Solji swallowed hard.

Hyuna looked to Hyoyeon.

Elly was the first to speak.

“I’m in,” she said, shocking them all. She was agreeing to spend the next week locked inside a tiny, tiny spacecraft with Kim Hyuna of all people. But every time she got nervous, every time she got weak, she touched her father’s stopwatch in her pocket.

That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Her father hadn’t raised a coward.

The universe needed her and she couldn’t back down just because it hurt to be around Hyuna.

“Fuck it,” said Taeyeon. “I guess I’m in, too.”

“Me, too,” Hyuna said.

Solji took a deep breath and exhaled hard, remembering that thing Hyerin had said about fate or bad luck.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

“Great,” said Seunghyun. Onscreen, even Chanyeol looked please. “I’ll send someone over with all the things you’ll need and I’ll let my men know what’s developed. I sincerely thank you ladies and one day, the rest of the universe will, too.”

He disconnected, leaving the five of them in the cockpit to consider what they’d just gotten themselves into.

“I guess,” Elly said, keeping her eyes on the floor, “we should go tell the other girls.”

“I guess you’re right,” Solji muttered.

She rose to her feet and headed for the door to the cockpit, having absolutely no idea what she was going to tell her crew and really having no idea what the hell she was going to tell her wife.

 

* * *

 

Hyerin sat on the couch in the observation deck, staring up at the stars.

She didn’t go into the observation deck very often, though she would admit to spending a few well-deserved nights off with Solji on this very couch doing a lot more than just stargazing. There was something romantic about it, she figured, all the shining stars against the stark, empty darkness.

Hyerin might have understood the human body but she’d never understand space the way Solji did. She’d never appreciate it the way her wife could. Where Hyerin saw nerves and blood clots and muscles, Solji saw nebulas and novas and meteorites. They were so similar, the human body and the galaxy called home, both so complex, so seemingly infinite, but they were worlds apart.

Just like Hyerin and Solji.

While Solji and Hyuna broke the news to the crews of the Unity, Pandora and Termite, Hyerin had sat quietly. Was she nervous about Solji doing something this big and dangerous? Of course. Was she terrified of the prospect of Solji getting hurt? Obviously. But was she in any position to voice those concerns? No. She wasn’t.

Her concerns would have come from Hyerin, Solji’s wife, not Hyerin, the Unity’s doctor. And that was unacceptable.

Solji was the captain. Solji was a fearless, competent pilot who had fallen ass-backwards into one of the biggest conspiracies in their ‘verse had ever seen. But she was in the position to make a difference. Alongside Hyuna, Taeyeon and Elly, Solji actually had the power to help save not one but two different universes.

How could Hyerin object? How could she be anything other than proud?

She was nervous to the point of trembling but there was some Xanax in her office that would take care of that.

Solji needed her support. Solji needed Hyerin to think that she hung the moon. She needed her wife to be that sure of her, to have that much faith in her.

And it worked out perfectly because Hyerin really did think Solji painted the entire galaxy by hand.

She just hoped Solji knew that, too.

She was waiting in the observation deck because she knew Solji would show up eventually. They hadn’t coordinated it, hadn’t planned it in advance, hadn’t texted each other to meet there. Hyerin just knew it was where Solji liked to hide out when she was stressed.

And this was a very, very good time for Solji to be stressed.

It was after midnight when Solji appeared, looking soft and pretty in her pajamas.

After all this time, seeing Solji brought a smile to Hyerin’s lips and a flutter to her heart.

“Who’s driving?” she asked with a smirk.

Solji hadn’t seen her at first, not with the angle of the shadows, but when she did, she smiled genuinely for the first time all day.

“Hyuna,” she said. “It’s my off-shift so I was going to take a nap.”

“Talk to me first?” Hyerin suggested lightly.

It was an offer Solji couldn’t refuse.

She sank down into the spot beside Hyerin, immediately finding her hand so that she could hold it in her own. She hadn’t expected to see Hyerin here, sure that her wife had already gone to bed, but this was such a pleasant surprise. It sure beat sleeping alone.

“Can I ask you something?” Solji spoke softly.

“Go for it.”

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. “For what I’m doing with Seunghyun and the captains?”

Hyerin shook her head.

“Solji, no. No way. I’d never be mad at you for doing your job.”

“I feel like everything’s moving at warp-speed,” she said. “It feels like just yesterday we were reading that listing about Jiyong and the bounty and now tomorrow night I’m climbing into the fucking Termite and going to Gachug. It feels like it’s all happened in a matter of minutes.”

Hyerin smirked at that.

“Maybe it has,” she said. “If there’s one thing that space has taught me, it’s that time is meaningless. Who’s to say this last month hasn’t existed in a just a few minutes?”

Solji laughed weakly.

“Please don’t get philosophical on me right now. I am so tired.”

Apologizing, Hyerin kissed her temple.

“You’ve been spoiled on this big, fancy ship for so long,” Hyerin said, changing the subject just slightly. “Are you at all worried about the conditions of the Termite?”

“I’m more worried about Hyuna and Elly. That’s a lot of days on a very small ship. From what I understand, it’s one sleeping cabin with two bunkbeds. That could get ugly.”

Hyerin only shrugged.

“Maybe they’ll realize they’re still endlessly in love with each other and get back together,” she teased. “You need to think more romantically, Solji.”

Solji gave Hyerin a playful shove and they both laughed, moving even closer to each other on the couch. When the laughter subsided, Solji’s back was against Hyerin’s chest, and Hyerin’s arms were around her waist. They were both looking up, watching the stars pass by. They were on their way to Geum Haneul. That was where the Unity would dock while the captains took the Termite to Gachug.

From there, it was anyone’s guess what would happen.

Solji and Hyerin were both thinking the same thing, though neither would admit it to the other – they hadn’t been apart for more than two consecutive days since they’d gotten married.

It was a very petty problem in a choppy sea of enormous, ‘verse-wide woes but it was something that was plaguing both of them. As the thought crossed her mind, Hyerin gave Solji a squeeze. She probably wouldn’t sleep a wink the entire time Solji was gone. (But there was Ambien in her office, right next to the Xanax, so she’d be okay.)

“Promise you’ll take care of the kids while I’m away,” Solji said, sounding a lot more dramatic than she’d meant to. “Try not to let Moonbyul and Solar be alone together. I don’t trust those two.”

“Oh, baby girl,” Hyerin said. “That was inevitable. I won’t be able to stop those two from sleeping together. Nothing will.”

“Good point,” Solji said.

“Speaking of kids, though,” Hyerin began and Solji actually turned her body a little so that she could look at her. “I was wondering if we could talk about that.”

“Wow,” she said. “We haven’t had this conversation in a while.”

Hyerin nodded.

For a long time, they’d had this conversation a lot. Really, they had it every time one of them had a sip too much to drink. They had it so much, in fact, that the other girls on the Unity had dubbed it a “Code Pink” so if one member happened to overhear the beginnings of trouble, she could go to the group chat and warn the others to make themselves scarce.

It wasn’t that talking about having children was inherently problematic for Solji and Hyerin. Instead, it was that the conversation rarely ever stayed on that subject very long. It was like a gateway fight. They’d start to talk about having children and Dr. Seo would insist that Captain Heo take nine months off so that she could live out her pregnancy on a stable planet with a reliable atmosphere, the best thing for an unborn child.

Then it snowballed. Solji’s fears that Hyerin resented her for taking her from surgery broke through the surface and manifested itself as harsh comments and defensive arguments. By the end of the night, they were screaming and crying and throwing shit and the rest of the girls were politely trying not to notice.

“Are you worried I won’t come back?” Solji said, half-teasing. With her fingertips, she was drawing shapes and lines up and down Hyerin’s forearms. “Is that why you want to talk about this now? You think we should do some sort of last will and testament deal?”

“No, shut up. It’s not like that. We just haven’t talk about it a while.”

“This always turns into a fight, Hyerin,” Solji said. “You don’t want to be pregnant. I do. But I don’t want to take nine months off from flying. You don’t want me flying while pregnant. Besides, we only have this conversation when we drink.”

“I thought you might say that,” Hyerin said.

Releasing her grip on Solji’s waist, she reached under the couch and produced a small cooler where she’d stashed a few beers. She handed one to Solji and kept one for herself.

“Wow,” Solji snorted. “You’re good.” Solji took a long sip and tried to present, tried to really appreciate this moment – the taste of a cold beer, the unmatched view as they hurtled through space, the way it felt to be in Hyerin’s arms. “We don’t need to have this conversation now,” she said. “I’ll be gone two weeks at the absolute most and when I get back, we will sit down, stone-cold sober, and have this conversation. I promise.”

To signify the validity of the promise, Solji clanked their bottles together, making Hyerin smile.

They sat like this for a while, drinking and enjoying the silence. They were both lost in thought, both experiencing similar worries and emotions, but, somehow, just sitting together was enough to make them both feel better.

When their bottles were empty, Hyerin discarded them and they settled back against the cozy, black couch like they were getting ready for bed. Hyerin’s arms were tight around Solji’s torso and Solji didn’t want it any other way.

This was comfort. This was peace.

“I promise I’ll come back safe,” Solji said quietly after the silence was becoming too much to bear.

“And I promise I’ll be right here waiting for you,” Hyerin countered soothingly.

“I know it’s crazy,” Solji said. “I know all of this is crazy. I know it’s dangerous. I’m sorry that I’m putting you through it but–”

She stopped, not sure where she’d wanted to go with that thought.

“But what?”

“But I want to make you proud,” Solji admitted finally. And there it was, the real reason that Solji felt it impossible to shy away from any of these new challenges. She wanted – _needed_ – to make Hyerin as proud as Hyerin made her.

This comment took the breath from Hyerin’s lungs, truly stunning her.

“Solji, what on earth–?”

“No, don’t say anything,” she said. “I was proud of you the day we met. I’ve been proud of you every moment since. You spent your entire adult life helping people, saving lives, making sick people better. I’m so proud of that. I’m so proud that my wife is a healer. And now I have a chance, Hyerin. I have a chance to heal the universe. I have a chance to really make a difference. And I’m going to do it and I’m going to come back here to you and I’m going to make you proud. I promise.”

There was a long pause. Hyerin could feel Solji’s heart pounding and she tried to process her words, tried to make sense of what she’d just said.

“Heo Solji,” she whispered, “you silly, silly woman.” She squeezed her again, pressing kisses to her head and her cheek and wherever else she could reach. “You never needed to save the universe for me to be proud of you. I already was. I always have been. That could never change.” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and shutting out the view that she’d never understood. “But one thing is for sure. You _are_ going to help save the ‘verse and I’m still going to be the proudest wife this galaxy has ever seen.”

The lump in Solji’s throat was back and she didn’t bother to fight it. Instead, she let a few rogue tears slip silently down her cheeks. She covered Hyerin’s hands with her own and smiled.

“I love you, Seo Hyerin,” she said.

“I love you, Captain Heo Solji,” Hyerin returned. “And now it’s time to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow and it’s better for everyone if you’re well-rested.”

Solji nodded. Hyerin was right. She was always right.

Taking a deep breath, Solji closed her eyes and went to sleep one last time in the universe as she knew it.

 

* * *

 _  
"Ah, as usual time flows_ _and gravity keeps pulling me down/_

_But if I’m with you, there's nothing better, nothing better._

_Honestly, me right now, I don’t have much to do/_

_I don’t have much to do bu_ _t I promise you that one day,_

_Girl, I’m gon' make you proud..."_


	14. Chapter 14

They had seven days to find Kwon Jiyong and get him to the quietly-famous El Dorado wormhole.

Seven days to charge to the complete other side of the solar system, all the while trying to avoid Heechul, the Cosmos government and other freelancers with similar ideas. Seven days to connect all the dots and get to the bottom of what exactly the hell was going on in the galaxy.

Seven days to throw a Hail Mary and save the universe.

The captains left the morning after their video conference with Seunghyun, barely twenty-four hours since they’d been left with no choice but to kidnap the Termite girls. Taeyeon had been quick to switch sides, almost like she’d been hoping she’d been given an opportunity to do so, and her co-pilot wasn’t far behind. But the Termite’s engineer and technical analyst – Amber and Krystal respectively – weren’t so eager to forgive and forget. Amber seemed too polite to actually voice her displeasure but Krystal wasn’t so subtle. She stomped around the ship, huffing and puffing and cursing under her breath until Yuri got fed up and suggested she search for hotel accommodations somewhere else on Geum Haneul.

Because they were taking the Termite to Gachug, Taeyeon didn’t need to pack and because the Pandora had been destroyed and, along with it, most of her belongings, Elly didn’t either. Hyuna threw a few changes of clothes and some weapons into a duffle bag and called it a day but Solji carefully packed a single suitcase with everything she thought she’d need while Hyerin sat on the bed and watched her, silent.

A weird cloud hung over the ship.

The girls were riled up, anxious, eager to get started. Never in their wildest dreams had any of them ever expected to get tangled up in something this big. Berm preservation? Government conspiracies? Military contractors? Treason? They’d gotten involved with the Cosmos’ manhunt for different reasons – Elly and Taeyeon wanted the money, Solji wanted the glory, Hyuna wanted revenge – but they’d never seen any of this coming.

How could they?

It seemed like almost every other member of their new super-crew was excited. Yuri and Sunny were chomping at the bit, ready to tear through line after line of secret code. Moonbyul and Solar were excited to work together (though Hyerin had a creeping suspicion that that had little to do with anything actually related to the Unity’s engine), Sooyoung was excited about being able to dive headfirst into wormhole research, Hwasa was excited to be in charge while the captains were away (no one was really sure where she’d gotten that idea but, as she seemed like somewhat of a natural leader, they just went with it) and Wheein was just excited to be included.

The captains weren’t excited. Elly was nervous, nervous about suddenly being involved in a plot to save the universe _and_ nervous about spending a week with Kim Hyuna. How could she save the galaxy when she couldn’t even save herself? How could she face off against the Cosmos, against some of the most dangerous thugs in the entire universe when she couldn’t even face the girl who’d broken her heart?

Taeyeon was apprehensive, second-guessing her instincts that had somehow led her to make a deal with a supervillain. If she couldn’t trust her own instincts, what did she have? There’d been a time not too long ago when Taeyeon used gut-feelings like a compass, letting the voice inside her head steer her life _and_ her ship. Without them, who was she?

Solji was scared, scared that she’d bit off more than she can chew, scared that she’d taken an unnecessary risk and put herself in unnecessary danger, scared that this was an even bigger deal than they all thought. Above all, she was scared she wouldn’t make it home to Hyerin, scared that she’d get herself shot or blown up and wouldn’t live to have another Code Pink fight with the love of her life.

Hyuna was angry. The Cosmos had destroyed her life once and now they were doing it all over again. Wasn’t killing her parents and sentencing her to four years in a Daedosi group home enough? Now they had to drag Elly into it? How many lives were they willing to destroy? How many people would Kim Heechul let die to further his career and elevate the art of war?

And then there was Hyerin. While a war threatened to break in space, bubbling quietly below the surface like water about to boil, an even fiercer battle raged inside the doctor. Her anxiety was tangible, knotting up her stomach and fogging up her head. She’d barely slept since this whole thing started, unable to wrap her head around the idea of Solji getting caught up in the Cosmos’ web. Simply put, she was terrified, completely and utterly terrified of what could happen to her wife, what could happen to her family, what could happen to the Cosmos System. She didn’t know how to rectify it, certain that all the Xanax and SmartDummy simulations in the world couldn’t still her shaking hands or slow her racing heart.

This might have been bigger than them, might have been about the good of the universe, but Solji _was_ her universe, damn it, and there was nothing anyone could tell her – not the captains, not the Cosmos, not Seunghyun, not Kim Heechul – that would ever convince her that this was a good idea.

But it all came down to one important fact – Solji was the captain. These decisions were huge, world-shattering and life-changing, but Solji needed to make them as a captain, not as Hyerin’s wife. And Hyerin? She needed to accept her role as the ship’s doctor, not as Mrs. Heo Solji. On any other ship, the doctor’s two-cents on tactical decisions would be worth about as much as Berm shit. But this was different. Solji was the captain, but Solji was Hyerin’s entire world. Shouldn’t that have counted for something?

It was a very thin line that Hyerin wasn’t sure how to walk anymore. She wanted to support Solji, wanted to tell her that everything was going to be fine, that she would be back in two weeks and they would be together again, safe and sound. She’d done just that in the observation deck, holding her wife and telling her exactly what she needed to hear. But the truth was that Hyerin didn’t want to let her go. The truth was she wanted to beg Solji to stay, beg her to cut all ties with the other ships and take some time off until things cooled down.

The truth was she didn’t want Solji to board the Termite and go to Gachug.

But Hyerin wasn’t allowed to tell her that and so, instead, she held her, made promises she couldn’t possibly keep and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Solji didn’t need the truth. Solji’s mind had already been made up and once that happened, there was no going back. Solji didn’t need Hyerin to beg her to stay – she needed Hyerin to tell her to go.

So that was what Hyerin did.

The next morning, while Solji packed, Hyerin sat on the bed and watched her, too afraid to open her mouth for fear of what would come out. Solji made stupid jokes to break the silence and lighten the mood and Hyerin laughed because that was what Solji needed.

When her bag was packed and there was no longer any way to stall the inevitable, Solji looked back at Hyerin with tears in her eyes.

It was like a switch had been flipped.

Whatever fear and apprehension Hyerin thought she felt, Solji felt it a thousand times more. She felt every worry of every person onboard her ship, felt every ounce of fear felt by every threatened Berm, felt the entire weight of the universe on her shoulders.

In that moment, Hyerin couldn’t remember how to feel uncertain. All she knew how to feel was love for Solji, and all she knew how to do was support her. She got up from where she sat on the bed and moved towards Solji with surprising grace. Though shorter than her wife, Hyerin took Solji into her arms with a familiar ease, letting Solji bury her face in her neck.

Better she cry now, before she needed to board the Termite, and get it all out. Better for Hyerin to be the only one to see her like this. Better for Hyerin to be there for her while she still could. Better for Solji to start the most important journey of her career with a clean slate of emotion.

Better for them to say their goodbyes in private.

“You’re going to do so great,” Hyerin whispered, feeling Solji’s tears against her skin. “My wife is going to save the universe. How lucky am I? You don’t even _know_ how much I’m going to brag about you. My parents will never hear the end of it.”

Solji laughed through sobs and clung more tightly to Hyerin.

“Unless I fuck up,” she said, “and _destroy_ the universe instead.”

Hyerin shrugged as best she could without jostling her.

“Still impressive,” she said. “I’d still brag about that.”

They stayed like for another few minutes. Eventually, Solji stopped crying. Hyerin whispered a few more words of encouragement and hope, words that would stay between them, and a quick, comforting peck on the lips became a long kiss goodbye that they both had to fight to end.

In one hand, Hyerin carried Solji’s suitcase. In the other, she linked her fingers with Solji’s. They walked off the Unity together, hand-in-hand, and joined the other girls at the hangar where the Termite was waiting.

The air was electric. Hwasa, Amber and Krystal seemed downright enthusiastic on Taeyeon’s behalf. Though Krystal was still brooding, there was something proud and energetic about her as she hugged her captain goodbye. Amber was cracking jokes, slapping Taeyeon on the back with each punchline, and Hwasa was laughing like this was just another Sunday morning search-and-rescue mission.

Elly looked even paler than usual as she stood near the ship, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket. Her eyes were down, narrowed slightly like she was really focusing, like she was counting the number of pebbles on the blacktop. Sunny and Moonbyul were beside her, the former appearing calm and collected while the latter radiated nervous energy. But, as was Moonbyul’s nature, she was talking a mile a minute, trying to make Elly laugh and trying to make everyone forget that with this journey came real and serious danger.

Hyoyeon and Hyuna were together, neither looking particularly bothered or impressed. As always, Hyuna was dressed in leather and adorned with spikes. Her dark eyes and bright lipstick always did wonders to make her look untouchable and that day was no different.

Only Sooyoung had come from the Unity. Solji hadn’t wanted her to, hadn’t wanted to bother the crew with dramatic goodbyes, but Solji insisted.

“What?” she said when Solji entered the hangar and looked her up and down disapprovingly. “I’m not supposed to come wish my captain luck?”

Solji smiled and hugged her and told her not to crash the ship while she was gone. Sooyoung laughed and told her to fuck off and kissed the top of her.

“It’s about time to go,” Taeyeon said, checking her watch. “The faster we leave, the faster we get back.”

“Seconded,” said Hyuna and then she turned to Hyoyeon and said, “Behave while I’m gone, unnie. If this doesn’t work out, I may not have the money to bail you out.”

Hyoyeon snorted. Rather than hug, they shook hands – an idiosyncrasy that Elly remembered well – and then Hyuna turned and boarded the Termite without another world. She didn’t seem to care, or even notice, that Moonbyul was shooting daggers, trying to make her head explode through sheer force of will, but she shook it off, hugging Elly and telling her to be safe.

“Make good choices,” Sunny said, giving Elly a tight squeeze. “Don’t talk to strangers. Wear your seatbelt!”

“Don’t die, Captain,” Sooyoung said, hitting Solji’s arm. And then, more seriously, she said, “I always knew you were destined for greatness. I knew that the first day I met you.”

When Taeyeon and Elly had boarded, and when Sooyoung went to stand with the remaining Pandora girls, Solji squeezed Hyerin’s hands.

“I’ll make you proud,” she said.

Hyerin smiled and said, “Already there, kid.”

They hugged, they kissed and then, before she lost her nerve, Solji took a deep breath, picked up her suitcase and boarded the Termite.

It was another few minutes before the ship pulled away and disappeared out of the hangar. Without realizing it, Hyerin had gone to stand beside Moonbyul, watching as her wife vanished up into space.

Never had a golden sky seemed so ominous.

“This is going to suck,” Moonbyul said when Sunny, Sooyoung and Hyoyeon had all started their walk back to the Unity. She glanced at Hyerin then looked back to where the Termite had gone. “This is really, really going to suck.”

Hyerin nodded slowly.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she said.

Moonbyul looked at her again, considering taking a step away from her to avoid being vomited on, but when she concluded that Hyerin’s words came from a place of anxiety rather than actual digestive distress, she put her hand on the doctor’s arm. Reaching into her pocket, Moonbyul felt the money she still had left over from her dice game on Cheoeum. Enough for a few burgers, she figured.

“Come on, Doc,” she said, wrapping her arm around Hyerin’s shoulders. “I’ll buy you some lunch.”

 

* * *

 

It was a long first day in the air.

The Termite was even smaller than Elly had been picturing and the sheer proximity to Hyuna was draining her energy and her will to save the universe. The other three captains seemed to be in full-fledged work mode, chattering informatively about flying conditions and landing gear and escape pods and Berm preservation tactics.

The Termite lacked an independent cockpit, meaning that while Taeyeon and Hyuna took the first flight shift, Solji and Elly weren’t very far away. From the connected kitchenette, and even from the closed-off common room, it was easy to hear their conversations.

Hyuna was confident in every word she spoke, in every move she made. She was in an unfamiliar ship, helping lead a next-to-impossible mission into deep, uncharted space, and she breathed easily like it was something she’d done a thousand times before.

How’d she do it?

Elly didn’t understand. It was hard enough to be in this situation professionally – to be piloting a strange ship under the pressure of such insanely high stakes – but personally? Had Elly really meant that little to her? Had it really been _that_ easy to cheat on her, to move on from her, to forget her completely? Even before they’d been thrown back into each other’s worlds, even before they’d reunited on Geum Haneul, Elly hadn’t been over Hyuna. Not even close.

Sure, it wasn’t as bad as it had been. She didn’t wake up crying anymore. She didn’t fall apart when certain songs came on the radio. She didn’t find herself drunkenly swiping through Hyuna’s social media accounts. She’d even tried getting herself back in the game, going to bars and talking to pretty girls and trying to act like her heart had miraculously grown back into one piece and was ready to be used again.

Nothing seemed to work. Time lessened the sting, turning raw flesh into scar tissue, but Elly hadn’t ever gotten over Hyuna. No amount of drunken one-night stands could repair the damage Hyuna had done and even before Jiyong and the great, tangled space race, Elly hadn’t moved past her.

And now? Being with her again? It was like someone had torn open each and every stitch that time had so painstakingly spent the last two years filling in. She felt like she’d been ripped in half, all her blood and guts and darkest feelings visible to the world, every nerve ending exposed to the elements. She wasn’t fine. Not one bit. So how was Hyuna?

Elly didn’t know what hurt more – being back with Hyuna after all that had happened between them, or knowing that Hyuna’s stoicism and composure came from a place of genuine emotional stability.

Hyuna was fine because Hyuna didn’t care.

And that was a lot for Elly to swallow.

Because of that, she didn’t sleep.

Somewhere in the middle of that first shift, Elly wandered back to the dorm, curious about the sleeping situation. Pandora-living, evidently, had spoiled her. Sure, they had dents and dings and no escape pod but at least they’d had separate bedrooms. The Termite’s barracks, meanwhile, consisted of one room with two bunk beds.

That immediately gave Elly chills.

There were too many possibilities – too many _bad_ possibilities. What if her off-shift lined up with Hyuna’s? What if she fell asleep and woke up to Hyuna in the bunk next to her, or the bunk above her? What if they found themselves four-feet apart, both unable to sleep, but with nowhere else on this micro-ship to go?

None of it seemed worth the risk, so Elly stayed up.

She was up for three straight shifts – a total of almost thirty hours – before Taeyeon intervened.

The two were in the cockpit, watching sparkly blackness fly by the windshield. This was the last shift before Gachug. Soon enough, they’d be retrieving the second half of the tracker (the original half, the one that Seunghyun had had in his possession, had been delivered to them via something called a Lightspeed Courier), activating it and following it to Jiyong. For now, though, they were flying and Elly was on her third packet of LifeForce in as many hours.

Taeyeon was eyeballing her, trying to size the captain up and figure out what she was about. To be fair, these people were all still strangers to Taeyeon, but she felt that she at least had some sort of base feeling about Solji and Hyuna.

Elly, meanwhile, was a mystery. The bags under her eyes and the slouch of her shoulders, however, were not.

“Have you slept since we left Geum Haneul?” Taeyeon asked. Since this was _her_ ship, on her shifts, she acted as the pilot. In this instance, and for the first time in a long time, Elly was a co-pilot.

“I’m fine,” Elly said, her voice listless.

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Taeyeon countered. Something on one of the panels had beeped, so Taeyeon looked down to see what caused it. It was Krystal’s software, the one that warned about impending meteorites and potential wreckage, but as their route would take them around this particular obstacle, Taeyeon swiped it away. “I know you’re nervous about the stuff with Jiyong but–”

“I’m not nervous about Jiyong,” Elly said, irritated. Her elbow was rested on the panel before her, her head held up by the palm of her left hand. Her right hand was stirring her drink, trying to get the notoriously sour grape LifeForce to dissolve faster. “Well, I mean, I am a little bit but that’s not why I’m not sleeping.”

Taeyeon raised an eyebrow, sparing a glance out the windshield to make sure she wasn’t about to steer them into a dwarf planet before focusing her attention on Elly.

She gestured to the panels and said, “Well, we’ve got another few hours of this. Might as well get it off your chest.”

Elly didn’t bother playing it cool or changing the subject. They would be spending at least the next two weeks together. Better Taeyeon know the truth now than spend the next few days playing catch-up and getting distracted from what was really important.

“Hyuna and I,” Elly began, poking the bottom of her glass with her spoon, “used to date. Well, more than that, really. We were _together_ for a while. She was my girlfriend. This was way back before any of this Jiyong stuff started. We sort of had no choice but to work together when the tech girls figured out was happening. But before last week, I hadn’t seen her in two years.” Elly tried to smile, tried to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal and she was still okay, but Taeyeon saw right through it.

“Huh,” she said after taking a moment to process that and apply it to what she’d already observed over the last day and a half. “So I guess our meager sleeping accommodations aren’t a dream come true for you, then.”

Elly shook her head.

“Not so much, no. I just can’t bring myself to lay down and fall asleep knowing that she might be there, too. I can’t go take a nap if I know I might wake up to the smell of her perfume. I just…” She shuddered at the thought of it, recoiling into herself when she remembered the last time they’d slept so close. “I think I’d rather just stay awake and risk dying of sleep-deprivation.”

“I’m not worried about you dying,” Taeyeon said. “I’m worried about you crashing my ship.” Elly blinked and Taeyeon backtracked. “Sorry. Hwasa says I lack certain social graces. What I meant to say is that you won’t die if you’re tired but you will be a danger to this mission and I can’t have that. Captain to captain, that just can’t happen. The good news is I think I’ve got a solution.”

Elly perked up a little.

“You have those energy-replacement pills from Daedosi?” she asked excitedly. “I thought those were still illegal in the air.”

Taeyeon sighed and said, “No. I don’t have any energy-replacers but what I do have is somewhere else for you to sleep.” Elly seemed baffled by this, sitting up straighter and leaning in slightly.

“Do you have a hidden compartment somewhere?” she asked. “I don’t need much room. I could probably sleep standing up like a horse.”

Taeyeon shook her head.

“Our engineer, Amber, she also needs her privacy. Plus she works a lot of late nights and doesn’t like to bother us when we’re sleeping. In the back of the engine room, there’s a mattress. It’s not a five-star hotel but it’s a warm bed, away from everyone else. Amber likes to think of it as her little slice of paradise but I don’t think she’d mind me sharing it with you.” Taeyeon paused for a moment and considered Amber’s strange relationship with Krystal. “Frankly, she has her own share of girlfriend drama. I think she’d be honored to help you out.”

“You mean it?” Elly asked, reminding Taeyeon suddenly of a puppy with its tail wagging.

“Yeah,” she said. “The rest of this shift is easy-peasy. I can do it alone. We’re going to be on Gachug soon and I’d rather you be well-rested and ready to go. You go take a nap. I’ll get us to the tracker.”

Elly hesitated for a moment, considering whether or not Taeyeon would appreciate being taken into a tight bear hug. Eventually, she decided on bowing, expressing her gratitude the way she used to back in flight school.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, picking up her glass and heading to the kitchenette to dump it out.

“Thank me by getting some rest,” Taeyeon said. “We’re going to need you later.” Elly nodded and took off in a light jog towards the common room, prompting Taeyeon to remind her where she was going. “When you get out of the common room, take a left. The engine room is kind of hard to miss.”

Without turning around, Elly gave her a thumbs-up and disappeared out the door. Taeyeon shook her head, smiling a little in spite of herself.

“Kids these days,” she said under her breath, returning her attention to the panels and screens that would eventually take them right to Gachug. “So dramatic.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Gachug was a farming planet. It was the Cosmos System’s chief exporter of dairy, meat and vegetables. It was a lot like Cheoeum, another planet seemingly set aside to grow crops and raise cattle, but the difference was that Gachug didn’t have anything worth mining. Its soil and atmosphere seemed perfectly tailored for farm life but did little to yield precious minerals that could be dug out of the dirt.

Taeyeon sat in the cockpit and researched the planet as she waited for the other three captains to wake up. Once she’d sent Elly to bed, it was another three hours of mindless flying until she got close enough to Gachug to signal the Termite’s landing. Unlike Cheoeum, Gachug actually _did_ have a centrally-located landing port, however small and rudimentary. Taeyeon called in, told the port authority worker who answered that they were coming down to shop for fruits and vegetables, and brought the Termite into the port as smoothly as she could.

“Good thing you said that,” Solji said, appearing behind Taeyeon a few seconds after she’d disconnected the call. She was dressed for the day, but there still seemed to be sleep clouding her eyes. “I actually _was_ hoping to stock up on a few things. This place is one big farmer’s market. It seems irresponsible to leave without some tomatoes and corn.”

“I’d prefer a nice, juicy steak,” said Hyuna, joining them in the cockpit. She, too, was dressed for the next shift but she looked refreshed and ready-for-action, no fatigue lingering anywhere on her face. Maneuvering around Solji, she took the seat opposite of Taeyeon, looking out the windshield so she could glance around the hangar. Only they weren’t _in_ the hangar. They were outside somewhere, parked in the grass. “This isn’t the landing port,” she said, breaking her own personal rule about stating the obvious.

“We need to get the other half of the tracker,” Taeyeon reminded them, pointing to the lockbox key that was sitting on the dashboard. “The landing port was a few hundred miles from where we needed to be, and I didn’t feel like spending a few hours in the rover.”

“How’d you get port authority to let you roam free?” Solji asked. “That usually requires all kinds of permits.”

Taeyeon grinned and twirled a lock of hair flirtatiously around one finger.

“You’d be surprised what blonde hair and a little charm will get you,” she teased. “I flirted, told the guy that I was going back to visit my family’s farm for the first time since graduating flight school and that I wanted to show my parents my ship.” She shrugged and glanced up towards the blue sky. “It wasn’t very hard at all.”

Impressed, Hyuna said, “Nice work. So, are we going or what?”

“We just need Elly,” Taeyeon said and then, remembering what the younger captain had told her while they were in the air, she added, “I think she’s in the engine room. Can you get her, Solji?” Taeyeon wasn’t interested in getting caught up in any ex-girlfriend drama but, at the very least, she figured she could keep Elly’s new hiding spot a secret. It was better for everyone on-board if Elly and Hyuna could keep things peaceful, and a hideout pretty much guaranteed _some_ degree of peace.

Sensing that Taeyeon was up to something, Solji narrowed her eyes. Still, she conceded.

“Sure,” she said, nodding once. “I’ll get her.”

Once she’d closed the door to the common room, Hyuna nodded her chin at the panel.

“So,” she said. “What’s the plan?”

 

* * *

 

 

It was decided that Elly would be the one to retrieve the key from the lockbox.

It was tucked safely away in a bank named after a historic space explorer and a crude security scan turned up no real threats. It was a very simple, run-of-the-mill savings bank whose main demographic was farmers, and a quick vote decided that Elly would make the best runner. Hyuna was out because she looked too intimidating. Taeyeon was out because nobody thought she could keep a straight face for that long, and Solji was out because she legitimately wanted to shop for meats and vegetables while Elly went and got the tracker.

Elly didn’t mind. Now that she wasn’t running entirely on fumes, she felt better. She still couldn’t look Hyuna in the eye but she didn’t feel _quite_ as hopeless as she had before.

It didn’t seem like a very hard mission anyway.

The ship was parked about a mile from town. Solji took the rover so that she could purchase as much fresh food as possible, and the other three walked, keeping their distance from each other as to not draw much attention to themselves. They’d changed before they left the ship, ditching style in favor of functionality and convinciblity. Hyuna’s iconic leather jacket and characteristic bright red lipstick would make her stick out like a sore thumb. Dressing in plain clothes and muted colors meant that they’d look the part and nobody would give them a second thought.

While Solji headed to the market and Elly took off for the bank, Hyuna and Taeyeon looked for ways to keep themselves busy. Neither of them were particularly social – people usually found Taeyeon awkward and virtually everyone who’d ever met her considered Hyuna to be cold – so making small-talk with passing farmers was out of the question. There was nothing inside any of the rural general stores that interested either of them. They’d only gone into town to act as backup in case anything weird went on while Elly was in the bank but standing there in the middle what could only be described as a Gachug village, Hyuna couldn’t think of what kind of trouble would ever find this place.

Maybe that was why Seunghyun had sent the second part of the tracker here.

Ultimately, Hyuna sat on a bench outside of a ramshackle motel and pretended to play on her phone while Taeyeon stood near the stables and looked at horses.

Solji, meanwhile, was having the time of her life at the farmer’s market. On the Unity, Yoona was something on a godsend. She could make an incredible meal out of whatever was in the pantry. Unfortunately, and perhaps the only major downside Solji could think of when it came to life in the air, ninety-percent of what they consumed was preserved. Whether it was dried, premade or just plain frozen, life in space didn’t really lend itself to fresh food.

But now, Solji was at an authentic farmer’s market on a planet known for its produce and dairy and she was filling her shopping cart like the world was ending. Carrots, tomatoes, strawberries, snow peas, pork, beef, fresh cheese, homemade pasta – she wanted it all. She was tempted to take a picture and send it to Hyerin, teasing her wife about the spoils of being the captain, but decided against it. She couldn’t remember what time it was on Geum Haneul and she didn’t want to wake her with something silly. But the next time Hyerin called, she’d have to hear all about Solji’s fried rice with fresh pork and beautiful, bright green broccoli.

Solji laughed to herself as she dug around her bag for her cash-card. It had only been a day-and-a-half but she missed her wife. It was a little embarrassing. Back in flight school, back when she’d been a humble playgirl with plans to seduce every attractive female student and professor in the academy, she made fun of people like that, people who were so attached to their significant other that they couldn’t even go two days without them.

But she’d been young and stupid then, completely ignorant to things like true love and real, live devotion.

Now she was older, wiser.

Now she had Hyerin.

As she waited to pay, Solji saw something familiar mixed in with the other impulse-buys. Right there between the chocolate almonds and glow-in-the-dark cigarette lighters was a bag of Hyerin’s favorite sour candy. They were somewhat hard to come by and the last time she and Yoona had gone shopping, Solji couldn’t find any. But there they were.

She threw three bags into the cart, smiling. Maybe she’d send Hyerin some pictures after all.

Inside the bank, things were running smoothly.

Elly had a pretty face and a very easy charm about her. She spoke confidently to the man at the counter, her tone completely breezy as she showed him the key and explained that she needed to access her safety deposit box. Amicably, he led her back to the boxes and gave her some privacy. Once she found box #401, it was smooth sailing. She opened the box, put the tracker into her purse and locked it back up. For good measure, she counted to a hundred before coming back out.

She thanked the man for his time and wished him a happy local holiday before disappearing out the front door, scanning the surrounding area for her cohorts. She saw Hyuna first ( _that_ figured) and when she caught her eyes, Elly nodded, signaling that it was safe to head back to the ship. Hyuna didn’t respond outright, pretending instead to take a phone call as she walked back the way they’d come.

She managed to get Taeyeon’s attention in the process, coming up behind her as she walked back up the trail.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Hyuna, holding her phone away from her mouth to protect the integrity of her fake call. “Did you drop this?”

“I don’t think so,” said Taeyeon.

“Oh, well,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.” Pulling the phone back up to her mouth and continuing her phony phone correspondence, she said, “Okay. I’ll leave in five minutes, then.” She walked away, certain that Taeyeon had gotten the hint, but still risking a glance over her shoulder to make sure the blonde had understood.

And she had.

By the time Hyuna got back to the ship, Solji was already there, unpacking groceries and trying to re-load the rover.

“I don’t understand this ship,” she grumbled, fumbling with the hatch. “Things are so _manual_.”

Hyuna snorted. “Suck it up, princess. And get all your criticisms out now.” She nodded her chin towards the path where Taeyeon was approaching. “Never trash-talk a ship in front of its captain.”

“Where’s Elly?” Taeyeon asked when she’d caught up to the ship. “Did she get the tracker?”

Hyuna nodded slowly and said, “She’ll be joining us shortly. Did you have fun watching horses?”

“I did,” said Taeyeon. “I named them – Crunchy, Logan, Meerkat and Sue.”

Hyuna laughed again.

“If you ever have kids,” she said, “please let your husband name them.”

Just about everything had been squared away by the time Elly returned to the ship. Taeyeon and Hyuna had gotten the rover back in its hatch and Solji was standing near the door of the ship, rifling through one of her bags.

“I know I bought okra,” Solji muttered to herself, trying to see the bottom of the bag without ripping it. “Where is it? Where did I put the okra?” She wandered back towards the path, looking at the ground as though she’d somehow dropped a bunch of vegetables without realizing it.

“You bought okra?” Elly asked once she was in earshot, stopping a hundred feet from the ship to see what Solji was doing.

“I thought I did!” Solji threw her head back and sighed dramatically before realizing that there were greater forces at play. Then she straightened up and looked Elly over. “Did you get the tracker?”

Grinning, Elly reached into her back and produced the second half of the tracker. It looked a bit like an old fashioned remote control with colorful buttons against black plastic. The other half, the one they had on-board, had the screen. At the top of this half were prongs and springs that would connect to the existing piece. Once they were together, they’d lead them to Jiyong.

“It’s kind of weird looking,” Elly said, holding it up to the sun so that she could examine it. “And if you ask me, the whole thing with cutting the tracker in half and hiding both pieces is a little–”

The rest of her sentence was cut off by a _whoosh_ and the loud crackle of static. Pain like nothing she’d ever experienced cracked through Elly’s left thigh and she couldn’t hear herself screaming over the continued popping of electricity.

But Hyuna heard it.

Hyuna and Taeyeon, still near the hatch, looked up in time to see Elly drop to the ground, the tracker and her purse falling to the dirt as she flailed and grabbed blindly at her leg.

Hyuna took off running without thinking.

“Get the ship started!” she screamed to Taeyeon, not bothering to look back at her. “Get ready to get us out of here!”

She’d heard the all-too-familiar sound of electricity permeating flesh. She could see it in the way Elly’s leg had stopped moving.

Shock-darts.

Someone was advancing on them. They were under fire.

Her first instinct was panic. It had been a while since she’d felt that, but that was what it was. She could taste it, sharp and metallic on the back of her tongue. Her heart drummed against her chest, her vision spotty. Elly was hurt and they were all in danger.

But, like it had been all those years ago, panic couldn’t prevail. It faded quickly and turned into something steely and much more efficient – adrenaline. It made her run that much harder.

In the shock of what had happened, Solji had dropped her bag, and strawberries and peas littered the ground alongside Elly’s body.

“What happened?” Solji asked frantically, trying to flip Elly’s body so that she could see the damage. “What’s wrong?”

But Elly couldn’t answer. She’d stopped screaming, the agony was gripping her leg making it too hard to speak. The pain was sharp and hot, radiating through her legs and traveling up her back. At the same time, she felt like she was losing feeling around where she’d been hit, a cold numbness chilling her to her core.

Hyuna was beside her within a few seconds.

“You’re okay,” she assured her, squeezing her hand without giving any thought to what it meant. “You’re going to be fine.” She looked up at Solji who stared back at her with shock and fear swimming in her eyes. “Hold her leg still.” Solji did as she was told, stabilizing Elly’s leg with one hand on her shin and one on her ankle.

Hyuna went to work. She was no stranger to shock-darts and she knew how to remove them safely. There were twin levers on the side that you needed to squeeze, and then, once the metal prongs were retracted, it could be pulled free. And that was exactly what Hyuna did.

“This is going to sting for a second,” Hyuna said, already feeling remorse. She didn’t want to hurt Elly – g she’d _never_ wanted to hurt Elly – but this was the only way to make it stop. It had to get worse before it could get better. She squeezed the levers, pulled out the dart, tried to ignore the way Elly screamed in anguish, and threw it as far from them as she could.

This had all occurred in the span of twenty seconds and now that Elly was beginning to heal (whether it _felt_ like it or not), Hyuna needed to address the threat. She looked around, checking the horizon all around them, but she didn’t see anyone. She followed the angle of Elly’s wound to where the shot should have come from, but no one was there.

They needed to get off Gachug before whoever it was came back to finish the job.

Pushing away the scattered dirt and vegetables, Hyuna recovered the tracker and forced it into Solji’s arms.

“Take this back to the ship,” Hyuna said. “Run as fast as you can, Solji.”

“What about her?” Solji asked miserably, pointing to Elly.

Hyuna swallowed hard. Seeing Elly like this was downright killing her. She was trying to force it down, trying so hard to mute her heart so that her brain could run the show. But she still loved Elly, and nobody wanted to see the woman they loved laying in the dirt, crying and convulsing at the hands of some asshole with a dart-gun.

“I’ve got her,” she said sternly, fighting back tears of her own. “Just go. Now.”

Solji did as she was told, holding the tracker to her chest as she ran hard for the ship, flinching slightly like she wasn’t totally sure if she’d be the next to endure a dart.

It was up to Hyuna to get Elly to safety and so she didn’t falter, not even for a second. She grabbed Elly by the wrists and pulled her so that she was sitting upright and once she was, Hyuna shifted Elly’s body onto her back.

Hyuna was petite but she was deceptively strong, something that had kept her alive once upon a time. (She hadn’t always looked as intimidating as she did now.) Elly wrapped her arms around Hyuna’s neck, something that Hyuna knew was strictly a fight-or-flight reflex, and, as such, she tried not to dwell on it. She took off running, holding tightly to Elly’s hips and legs as she did.

The ship wasn’t far but Hyuna could still feel her heart in her throat. The fact that she couldn’t _see_ her enemy terrified her. As she ran, she considered the possibilities. Best case scenario was that whoever had shot Elly was just a run-of-the-mill bandit. Worst case scenario, though, was that someone else knew about the tracker and they were trying to get it back.

And that would be very, very bad.

Hyuna ran faster.

Even if the culprits were still lingering somewhere out of sight, she knew they’d be okay. As bad as it may have sounded, Elly was actually protecting Hyuna. Draped over her back like that, she was something of a human shield. That, of course, hadn’t been Hyuna’s plan – this had just been the most logical and most efficient way to get Elly back to the ship – but it was a strategic fact. Since Hyuna was the only one who could currently get Elly back onto the Termite in one piece, it was kind of crucial that she didn’t get shot.

Whether it was because Elly protected her or because their attackers had run off or even just by sheer good luck, they made it through the door and up the ramp without anything else going wrong. Hyuna carried Elly through the kitchen, the common room and straight back to the dorms without missing a single step, completely ignoring questions and concerned shouted from the other captains.

“Go, go, go!” was all Hyuna had said as she ran through. “Get us in the air!”

Elly was still whimpering as Hyuna set her down gently on one of the bottom bunks.

“Is she going to be okay?” Solji asked. Hyuna hadn’t even realized that Solji had followed her.

“She’ll be fine,” Hyuna muttered. She was kneeling beside Elly’s bunk, suddenly glad that Elly had been wearing loose-fitting sweatpants. It made treatment a whole lot easier than if she’d been wearing her usual skinny jeans. Rolling up Elly’s left pant leg as tenderly as she could, Hyuna whispered soothing affirmations. She’d never had a great bedside manner but in this case, she was trying her hardest to be compassionate and warm.

Solji gasped out loud when she saw Elly’s thigh. The wound itself – small and round – was bleeding, but not severely. It would stop on its own. The skin around it was red and irritated, such was the nature of the dart, and the flesh immediately around that was ghost white. (People tended to refer to this stage of the healing process as “the bullseye.”) But Elly would be okay. She’d need painkillers and probably something to sedate her (she’d never had a particularly high tolerance for pain) but she would be okay.

Unfortunately, in the immediate aftermath of a shock-dart, there just wasn’t a whole lot you could do.

As much as it pained Hyuna to admit, Elly was just going to have to tough it out until the initial pain passed. Someone would probably need to hold her hand (and that was probably going to have to be Solji) and talk her through it, but she _would_ survive.

Shock-darts weren’t lethal. That was the entire point. Shock-darts, when used correctly, subdued a person without killing them or causing any major long-term damage. They were really something to behold in certain context.

“She doesn’t look like she’s okay,” Solji insisted, speaking quickly. She gestured down at Elly as though Hyuna somehow couldn’t see her. “Look at her! She can’t stop shaking.”

“I can see her,” Hyuna said through gritted teeth. Elly’s eyes were squeezed shut, her hands clenched into tight fists. She was still whimpering and whining, but it was quieter now. She was having a hard time laying still, her body reacting to the pain as though it was being jolted all over again, but that was a textbook first-reaction to shock-dart. “I assure you, Solji, she will be fine.” She looked back to Elly, hoping her tone sounded sincere. “You hear me, El? You’re going to be fine. Just hang in there. I know it hurts.”

“You’re not a doctor,” Solji persisted. “How could you possibly know if she’s okay? We should stop at a hospital somewhere. She can’t be okay like this. Fuck it. I’m going to tell Taeyeon to take us to the closest med-station.”

Hyuna swore loudly in Korean and then shifted so that she was down on one knee. Roughly, she pulled up her right pant leg and while Solji was too startled to gasp, she was just surprised enough to recoil and take a step back.

Hyuna’s skin was stained with scars, lines of red and brown that seemed to extend like tree branches and splinter off into individual sticks and twigs. It looked as though she’d been struck by lightning, the sheer force of the electricity had branding her, claiming her as its own.

Of course, that was only half-true.

“I know a thing or two about shock-darts, Solji,” Hyuna said quietly. Her tone was deadly serious and the softness with which she spoke took Solji’s breath away. “I know that she will be okay. One dart to the thigh will not kill her. In a day or two, it will be like it never happened. In the meantime, I want you to sit here and hold her hand and tell her stories to distract her from the pain. I’m going to find some painkillers, make her something to eat and get her a change of clothes. You just get her through the next hour or two. Okay? You understand? You with me?”

Nodding, and feeling like she’d suddenly shrunken in size, Solji said, “Yes. I understand.”

“Thank you,” Hyuna said. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she fixed her pants and stood up, navigating around a clearly-uncomfortable Solji to get to the door. Solji was quick to take her spot, sitting on the edge of Elly’s bed and taking her hand with a much more natural softness than Hyuna had.

Hyuna shook her head, finding it hard to look directly at them. Still, wanting to lighten the mood just a little bit, she said, “It was kind of stupid bringing four captains along, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Solji asked.

“What did we need four captains for? What we really need is a doctor. We probably should’ve brought your wife along.” Humorlessly, she laughed, and then shrugged. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, huh?”

Shaking her head, and without another word, Hyuna pushed through the door and headed for the kitchen, trying not to think too much about how long it had been since the last time she’d made dinner for Ahn Elly.


	15. Chapter 15

Moonbyul felt like she was swimming in shark-infested waters.

Wherever she went on-board the Unity, whether it was the kitchen or the gym or the cockpit, she felt like Hyoyeon was one step behind, waiting, watching, lurking. She was rational enough and self-aware enough to know that that wasn’t the truth, that the paranoia was all in her head, but still realistic enough to take steps to avoid her.

It was a delicate balance.

She didn’t want to make a big deal out of her history with Hyoyeon, didn’t to draw any unnecessary attention to herself when there were so much more important thingsafoot, but it was impossible not to feel the cold heat of contempt every time she and Hyoyeon were in the same room.

Luckily for her, it didn’t happen very often. Hyoyeon was avoiding Moonbyul just as actively as Moonbyul was avoiding Hyoyeon.

But the Unity, however luxurious, was only so big. Crossing paths was unavoidable and whether that happened personally in the galley or professionally in the common areas, the protocol was basically the same. They ignored each other. Sure, there was the occasional dirty look or muttered curse word, but both seemed content to pretend the other wasn't there.

Neither was very happy about being forced to live and work with the other, and one of the only things that united them was how much they hated the fact that Elly and Hyuna were together on the Termite. And since a mutual hatred for the other’s best friend wasn’t a very good foundation upon which to build a new friendship, they stayed away from each other, both altering their course when they heard the other coming.

But there was another inevitability looming over both of their heads. Just like how they couldn’t avoid each other forever, they couldn’t keep a lid on their feelings forever, and it took four days in the air, four days of stepping carefully and walking on eggshells around the Unity, before all their history, resentment and bad feelings finally came to a head.

It happened in the kitchen, during one of Yoona’s off-shifts, both of their stomachs grumbling at the very same moment. Moonbyul had gotten there first and Hyoyeon arrived a few seconds after, just in time to see her digging around the inside of the refrigerator.

Hearing her footsteps, Moonbyul looked over her shoulder, saving her grimace for when she was safety blocked by the fridge door.

“I’ll be done in a second,” she mumbled, reaching for a container of leftovers.

“Whatever,” Hyoyeon said, not sounding particularly interested either way.

Moonbyul exhaled before closing the fridge, steadying herself so that she could keep her feelings in-check. She took a few careful steps towards the microwave, popping the lid off her food and considering idly how long she should heat it. Hyoyeon headed towards the fridge to take Moonbyul’s place, and Moonbyul stared down at her meal, hoping that staying focused on spaghetti would take her mind off things, hoping that occupying herself with her dinner would keep her from saying the thing that was burning her throat and tongue, hoping that–

“Did you hear that Elly got hurt?” she asked, pushing her food away from the edge of the counter so that she could lean against it, facing Hyoyeon and hoping to see some sort of reaction. But there wasn’t one. With Hyoyeon, there never really tended to be. Like Hyuna, she wore an ever-present poker face.

“Yes,” she said, emerging from the fridge with a sports drink in her hand. She twisted off the cap and threw it sideways into the trashy bin. She took a long sip, apparently expecting Moonbyul to say more and when she didn’t, Hyoyeon raised an eyebrow. “Hyuna said that she’ll be fine.”

“Did Hyuna mention that it was _her_ fault?” Moonbyul spat, not bothering to hide the spite in her tone, and not bothering to try shying away from conflict. Not this time. Not anymore. Not when Elly was lightyears away, trapped inside a ship a fraction the size of the Unity, trapped with her dragon of an ex-girlfriend and shock-dart wounds on her legs. She'd played nice for four days but with Elly hurt and so far awawy, Moonbyul was _looking_ for a fight. She wanted to take out what she was feeling on Hyuna but Hyuna wasn’t around. And Hyoyeon? She was basically the next best thing.

Hyoyeon looked around the empty kitchen like she expected to find an audience. Her expression was incredulous. She could rarely believe the bullshit that came out of Moonbyul’s mouth but this accusation felt particularly insane.

“How the fuck do you figure that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “They got ambushed. It could have easily been Solji or Taeyeon or even Hyuna who got shot. Someone else wanted the tracker. Everyone in the fucking universe is looking for Jiyong. It’s possible that someone else cracked the code and figured out were the tracker was. Hyojin just happened to be the unlucky person holding it at the time.”

“First of all, don’t call her that. You don’t get to call her by her first name.”

Hyoyeon rolled her eyes and said, “ _Elly_ will be fine. She is a big girl, Byulyi. She knew the risks. She knew the dangers. She made her choice. Let it go.”

“ _You_ let it go,” Moonbyul countered petulantly. She was trying to bait her, trying to poke and prod Hyoyeon into fighting with her. They’d hated each other back when Elly and Hyuna were together, they’d hated each other when Elly and Hyuna broke up and they hated each other now. Why should they keep skirting the issue? Why beat around the bush? Now was as good a time as any to hash it out. Maybe if they cleared the air, they’d be able to move on. (At the very least, Moonbyul thought she’d feel better once she opened up and told Hyoyeon what a cunt she was.)

“You’re being childish,” Hyoyeon said, her tough guy stoicism beginning to thin. Her voice was level but there was rage in her eyes. “You really want to do this now? In the middle of a fucking space odyssey?”

“ _We’re_ not doing anything,” Moonbyul fired back, gesturing at the gap between them. “We’re parked on Geum Haneul. Yuri, Sunny and Krystal are trying to figure out who ambushed the Termite and the captains are following the tracker signal. _We_ have absolutely nothing better to do.”

“You want me to stand here and tell me all the reasons I hate your friend Elly?” Hyoyeon asked, putting her drink on top of the fridge so that she could cross her arms over her chest. “Or all the reasons I hate _you_?”

Moonbyul smirked and scoffed and opened her arms like she was ready to accept Hyoyeon’s embrace.

“Hit me,” she said. “Do your worst.”

Hyoyeon laughed, humorlessly, dryly, disbelievingly. She looked around again, hoping to find someone else who was listening and couldn’t believe Moonbyul’s bullshit. But when she found no one, she cocked her head to the side, cracking her neck, and bit the corner of her lip.

“Okay. Fine. I think you’re an arrogant try-hard who’s wrong about literally everything and your ridiculous love affair with Elly makes you completely blind to what a fuck-up she is,” Hyoyeon said simply. “You have these blinders up about Elly and it borders on hero-worship. _You_ might think she’s the hero of this story but I promise you, Moon Byulyi, she is the villain in Hyuna’s.”

Moonbyul took a few seconds to process this but she was unable to shake off the base amusement that she felt. This was how it always was between them, a back-and-forth that almost felt like a game, like they were playing chess or table tennis, taking turns making moves. There was malice and spite and resentment and borderline hated between them but it still felt like child's play.

Moonbyul wondered if either of them would ever win.

“You can call Elly whatever you want,” Moonbyul said after a moment, her voice even and low, “but _she_ isn't the one who cheated, Hyoyeon. Try as you might, even _you_ can’t twist that around. Even you can’t change the past.”

“Oh star-fucking Christ,” Hyoyeon said, rolling her eyes so dramatically that her entire body moved. “This again? Really? You’re a broken record, Byulyi! Get over it! Nana had been watching them for months, waiting for them to weaken, waiting for the right time to strike, and then she did! If you’re still that pissed, take it up with Nana. It was one time!”

Moonbyul scoffed, recoiling slightly at what Hyoyeon was implying.

“So you’re saying it was all Nana’s fault? That Hyuna has absolutely no responsibility in this? She’s a grown-ass woman, Hyoyeon. She couldn’t have said no? She couldn’t have remembered her girlfriend of two years and decided not to fuck someone else?”

“You have this completely made-up image of Elly,” Hyoyeon said, taking a step closer to Moonbyul without realizing it and making the 'crazy' sign around her temples, “where she was the perfect, most attentive, most devoted girlfriend in the entire Cosmos. She wasn’t. She was an asshole. She ignored Hyuna, she took her for granted, she missed dates and forgot anniversaries and went with weeks without calling her back. She was a shitty girlfriend and it wore Hyuna down. So, yeah, when Nana showed her a little attention and made her feel like she was loved and she was wanted, Hyuna acted on it. So what? Is that so bad? After being treated like garbage for months, was it so bad for Hyuna to want someone to take care of her. Where was Elly anyway that night, Byulyi? What was she doing that was more important than spending just a little fucking time with the woman who loved her?”

“You’re delusional,” Moonbyul said, blinking through her shock. “You really think any of that makes what Hyuna did okay? Why didn’t Hyuna talk to Elly? Why didn’t she reach out and tell her how she was feeling? Why didn’t she do _anything_ besides taking Nana home and fucking her in their bed?” She shook her head, feeling her cheeks growing flushed.

She’d been the one to walk in them, after all. She’d gone to borrow something from Elly’s closet and found instead Hyuna with Nana’s head between her legs. Even thinking about it now made her want to cry. She remembered everything so vividly – how she’d caught Hyuna’s eyes before she turned on her heel and walked away, how it felt like something was crushing her chest as she tried to find the words to say to Elly, how much it hurt to stand there and listen to a hysterical Ahn Hyojin call her every name in the book, accusing her of being a liar, accusing her of being jealous, accusing her of hating Hyuna before finally accepting the truth and collapsing on the floor in a puddle of tears.

It had easily been one of the worst nights of her life, and Hyoyeon had the audacity to stand there and tell her it all could have been avoided if Elly had been a better girlfriend?

“Maybe it doesn’t make it okay,” Hyoyeon continued, “but it makes it _something_.” She opened her mouth to say something else but bit her cheek. Maybe Moonbyul was okay with flying off the handles and making an emotional fool out of herself, but Hyoyeon wasn’t. She took a deep breath, considered her next words carefully, and lowered her voice when she spoke. “Hyuna isn’t the demon queen you think she is, Moonbyul. She is a human being, flesh and bone just like us, just like Elly. Unlike you, I don’t think my best friend is perfect. I know she’s fucked up but with Elly, she was trying her best. And Elly let her down. Time and time again, Elly let her down. And Elly _knew_ Hyuna. She knew what she’d been through and she knew what she needed. Or, at least, we all thought she did. But you can’t love somebody and cut them off like that. She never really loved her, Byul. If she did, she wouldn’t have done that to her.”

“You’re full of shit,” Moonbyul said. At some point, she’d pushed herself off the counter and gotten closer to Hyoyeon. She hadn’t realized it when she was doing it but suddenly, she found herself just a foot away, looking Hyoyeon dead in the eyes as she spoke. This had been a long time coming. It had been two years since Moonbyul had seen Hyoyeon and Hyuna, and she’d spent more sleepless nights than she could count practicing what she’d say to them if she ever saw them again. But now, in the moment, her well-rehearsed words failed her, and all she could do was speak from her broken heart. “Elly loved Hyuna with everything she had.”

“Hyuna loved Elly,” Hyoyeon went on, ignoring her. “She loved her so much. She still does. She told her everything, things she doesn’t tell _anyone_. She opened up her heart to Elly in a way that she’ll probably never do again and you don’t get to stand here and negate all that just because you think the sun shines out Elly’s ass. Grow up, Byulyi. Realize that life isn’t so black and white. If you haven't figured it out by now, the world is a hell of a lot bigger than either of us, and one bad decision doesn't make or break the entire fucking Cosmos. I wish you'd realize it already.”

“Just as soon as you realize that your friend is a whore,” Moonbyul said coldly. “She was one two years ago and she still is now.”

Licking her lips and resisting the urges burning up the base of her neck, Hyoyeon took another small step forward, bringing her face closer to Moonbyul’s.

This was it. The clash of the titans. All the things they'd wanted to say to each other for the last four years. It was two hot-blooded women who were so fiercely loyal to their friends that it drove them to hate each other, and it was finally raining down over both of them right there in the galley of the Unity.

“You have no idea what Kim Hyuna has been through,” she said lowly, fists clenching to the point of pain. “You don’t know anything about her. You think you know everything but, like I said, you tend to be wrong a lot. No hateful bullshit you throw at her can change the fact that she’s been through hell and home again. She needed Elly to love her, to _really_ lover her, and Elly couldn’t do it. What happened after that? It wasn’t Hyuna’s fault. Not by a longshot. I know it. You know it. Even your friend Elly knows it.”

Not one to back down to a challenge, Moonbyul straightened up her and leaned in even closer.

“I don’t give a _shit_ what Hyuna’s been through,” she hissed. “Her past does not excuse away her future. She doesn’t get a pass, Hyoyeon. I don’t care if she was tied up and shipped to a labor camp on Byeongsa. I don’t care if she was sold off to a Berm-fighting ring on some shitty outlier rock. I don’t care what she’s been through. She doesn’t get to break other people’s hearts just because–”

Moonbyul didn’t see the punch coming. She was so engrossed in her rant that she didn’t notice Hyoyeon cocking her fist back and letting go. Before she’d registered any of it, Hyoyeon’s right hand connected with Moonbyul’s left cheek, sending the engineer to the floor in a heavy heap.

Moonbyul landed on her ass, her hand immediately coming up to touch at the trail of blood streaming from the corner of her mouth. Hyoyeon was above her in a matter of seconds, pointing down at her with a certain, terrifying certainty burning in her eyes.

“You watch your fucking mouth,” she said, shouting for the first time since they’d joined forces on the Unity. “Do not say another fucking word to me about Kim Hyuna. You know nothing, Moon Byulyi. Absolutely nothing. Do not speak to me. Do not come anywhere near me. When this is all over and we finally go our separate ways for good, that’ll be the last fucking time we ever see each other. And until then, keep Hyuna’s name out of your goddamn mouth. Next time, I won’t let you off so easy.”

She stormed out with a rage that Moonbyul had never seen before - not in Hyoyeon, not in _anyone_. It would have been unsettling if she hadn’t been so awstruck. She didn’t know what she’d said to set Hyoyeon off like that, especially since she’d said a lot worse shit earlier in the conversation when she’d purposely been trying to provoke her. She was so stunned, in fact, that she didn’t notice Solar in the doorway until she was on the floor beside her.

“Moonbyul,” she said, sounding stricken. “Are you okay? What the fuck was all that about?”

Moonbyul was still staring at the door. She touched her lip again and examined her hand, unsurprised to see crimson blood on her fingertips. She’d definitely have a fat lip in the morning. She knew that she should probably peel herself off the ground and go get something from the freezer to help slow the swelling, but she couldn’t get herself to stand back up. Her head was spinning, but it wasn't from the punch.

 Maybe Hyoyeon was right and she really didn’t understand anything at all.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said absently. And then, after a few seconds, she looked to Solar, wishing she had less questions and more answers. “I really, really don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

Solji’s off-shift happened to align with Hyuna’s and that was how they’d ended up in opposite bunks of the tiny, tiny dorm just a handful of hours after Elly had taken a shock-dart to the leg.

Things were... awkward.

Hyuna had managed to scrounge up some decent painkillers and a bowl of soup and after Elly was fed and medicated, she’d been taken back to the engine room to recover privately. That had been Hyuna’s idea. Apparently Amber's floor-bed wasn't quite the well-kept secret Taeyeon thought it was. Solji found that to be somewhat selfless, Hyuna willing to take herself out of the equation as soon as it was safe and reasonable to do so. She’d gotten Elly out of danger and treated her wounds and once she was stable, Hyuna stepped back and let Elly have the space she deserved.

Still, a lot had happened. Between Elly’s wounds, Hyuna’s own scars and the tracker itself, Solji’s head was understandably cloudy. When everything had calmed down (if only slightly), Taeyeon ordered Solji and Hyuna to bed. Naturally, they put up a fight but Taeyeon shut it down, immediately pulling rank and declaring herself the true captain of the Termite. As such, she was the boss and she needed them to rest.

As for the tracker, things hadn’t quite been as straightforward as they’d been hoping. They fashioned the two halves together, breathing a collective sigh of relief when the screen lit up and the thing powered on, but it didn’t work the way they’d been expecting. Instead of displaying Jiyong’s coordinates, it gave them a limited scope of directions – so many lightyears this way, so many degrees that way. It was like following a trail of breadcrumbs. They only learned more as they got closer. They knew what direction to fly but wouldn’t know anything else until they got to that next point.

It was frustrating.

Still, Taeyeon insisted that she fly the next shift solo. She wasn’t tired and she was perfectly able to read the tracker for next few hours. It had been a hectic shift and she wanted Hyuna and Solji to be well-rested and alert when it was their turn to shine. Unanimously, they agreed that Elly would take a few shifts off to recover whether she liked it or not. (And Solji had been nominated to break the news to Elly once the painkillers wore off and her head was clear.)

That was how Solji and Hyuna ended up in the dorm together. They’d each taken a bottom bunk, both content to lay there in the dark, unspeaking, but two hours into their off-shift, neither had fallen asleep.

It was around that time that Hyuna began to get restless.

“Hey, Red,” she said softly on the off-chance that Solji had passed out. “You awake?”

Solji swallowed hard and said, “Yeah.”

“Me, too,” Hyuna sighed. “Obviously. What’s keeping you up? Is it the stuff with the tracker? Taeyeon seems confident enough that it’ll lead us to Jiyong. Our next shift, we can call Seunghyun and make sure it’s working right. Frankly, it seems like a huge fucking design flaw, but maybe it’s just a security measure. That wouldn’t surprise me. Don’t be too worried about that.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Solji said.

“Well if you’re stressing about Elly,” Hyuna continued, putting her arms comfortably behind her head as she stared up at the top bunk, “don’t be. Maybe my word’s not worth much to you but I do promise that she’ll be fine. She’ll sleep it off. She might be sore tomorrow but in a few days, she’ll be good as new. Don’t sweat that. She’s tougher than she looks.”

Solji took a breath. That was a loaded statement. Hyuna probably knew more about Elly than anyone else in the galaxy. Something about that was jarring. To Solji, Elly was just a new friend, a fellow pilot, a formidable captain. But to Hyuna? She was everything.

“I’m not thinking about that either.”

Hyuna exhaled, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

“So, my scars, then?” She laughed under her breath. “Yeah, I saw your face earlier. You can ask, you know. You won’t offend or upset me.”

The truth was that Solji didn’t want to get involved. Hyerin wouldn’t have wanted her to. Hyerin would have wanted her to mind her own damn business and focus on the work and get herself home as soon as possible. But while Hyerin was definitely on Solji’s mind, she also wasn’t around to talk her out of talking.

“I know I’m not a doctor,” Solji said after a pregnant pause, “but I remember hearing Hyerin and Sooyoung talk about shock-darts once. You need to be hit with _dozens_ of darts to end up with scars like yours, Hyuna.”

Hyuna smiled a little, though she wasn’t sure why. Was it pride? Or her age-old numbness finally showing itself?

“It was definitely more than a few dozen times,” she said. “But you’re right. It takes a lot for scars to form. Like I said before, Elly will be fine. One won’t hurt her. Hell, ten wouldn’t hurt her.”

Solji didn’t move. She bit the inside of her cheek and then, after another beat, asked, “Hyuna, what _happened_ to you?"

Hyuna nodded slowly even though she knew Solji couldn’t see her. It had been a while since she’d told _this_ story but now – hurtling through space looking for a treasonous fugitive while her wounded ex-girlfriend slept on the dirty engine room floor of a strange ship – seemed like as good a time as any to open up.

“Do you remember what I told Seunghyun that day on Jaesan?” she began, shifting slightly so that she could get more comfortable. “About my parents?”

Solji did. The Cosmos had effectively killed both of Hyuna’s parents, orphaning her.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “They were both killed. You said you went to a group home in Daedosi.”

“That’s the part of the story everyone knows,” she said, nodding. “That part is common knowledge. It’s what happened _after_ that. That’s the part nobody knows.” Hyuna stopped speaking and considered this for a moment before adding, “Well, almost nobody. Hyoyeon knows and–” Hyuna paused and thought of Elly. Elly knew. Elly knew everything. She just didn’t want to admit that part out loud. “Nobody really knows what happened next.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Solji said, suddenly feeling vulnerable on Hyuna’s behalf. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“What good has keeping secrets ever done me?” Hyuna said more to herself than Solji.

There was another long pause. Solji could hear Hyuna breathing. If she listened hard enough, she could probably hear the engine turning, could hear Taeyeon singing to herself in the cockpit. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered but she didn’t think Hyuna heard her.

“When I got to Daedosi,” Hyuna began thoughtfully, “I truly had no idea what I was in for. I sat next to some older kids on the ship. They were all considered wards of the Cosmos and their parents had all been killed or captured under suspicious circumstances. Basically, they were all in the same boat as me. They were kids whose parents got caught up in some Cosmos bullshit and suddenly, they were orphans.

“Because of this, we were basically blacklisted. Sins of the father, you know? No one wanted us. We were the _bad_ orphans, the bottom-of-the-barrel kids. It wasn’t like we were nice, wholesome kids from Geungyo whose parents were doctors who died in a freak accident. We came from people considered to be traitors to their system and so we were outcasts. Nobody would want to adopt us. That was what the government social workers told the older kids and that was what the older kids told me.

“To most people, Daedosi is just another planet. When you think Daedosi, you probably think of a bustling metropolis, a huge cultural hub with lots of diversity and lots of social exports. But there’s a dark side to that planet that nobody ever talks about. The older kids knew about it already. But me? I was only twelve and I’d never even _been_ to Daedosi, much less knew anything about the twisted underbelly of what _really_ goes on there.

“Daedosi is home to the Cosmos’ largest orphanage and foster care system. Everybody knows that part. But orphanages aren’t one big building with lots of bunk beds where kids stay until someone shows up and adopts them. As soon as you arrive, you get a physical so they know you're not diseased or broken, and once you’re cleared, they outsource you to various group homes. I was sent someplace called the Happy Family Home but Solji, I assure you, there was nothing _happy_ or _family_ about it.

“The home was run by a group of four adults and words can’t express, in Korean _or_ in English, how sleazy they were. In a way, I was really lucky. I was pretty even back then. I’d hit puberty early. By all accounts, I should have been one of the kids they pimped out. I was twelve, attractive. I should have been bringing in big bucks for Happy Family. Someone like me, fresh-faced and completely alone with absolutely no way to support myself or ask for help? That’s a hot commodity in Daedosi. But Ralph – he was probably the worst person at Happy Family – he saw something in me. He saw fire, he saw fight. When it came time for me to ‘earn my keep’ and make them some money, Ralph sent me to the ring.

“This was nothing like the fight clubs you see on TV. This was two starving teenagers with chains around their necks thrown into a ring and only one unfortunate sole emerged victorious. It went by age and by weight class and then, as you leveled up, it became a real blood bath. Beginners fought until someone was unconscious. In what they called the A-League, the doors didn’t open back up unless one person was dead or dying. I started out with the rookies, fighting other little girls in what they called the Cat Fight circuit. And then, as I learned the game, I worked my way up the A-League.

“See, if you won, you were in the clear. You got to eat. You got to sleep inside. If you _really_ impressed the Happy Family, you got the extras – medical care, internet access, new clothes. But if you lost? If you lost when Ralph had placed a special bet on you? God help you. Again, though, I was lucky. Ralph had a soft spot for me. When I lost, or even when I won but didn’t perform up to his standards, I got a shock-dart in the thigh. Sometimes one, usually more, usually over-and-over again until I couldn't feel my leg. When some of the other kids lost, boys _or_ girls, they’d go into the basement with Ralph. Those kids never came out of the basement the same kids they were when they’d gone down.

“I was fifteen when they put me in the A-League. Ralph told me I was ready. By then, I’d become a good fighter. Hell, I was a  _great_ fighter. You'd be surprised how quickly you catch on when your life depends on it. Because it was my debut fight, Ralph put even more money down than usual and he made it very clear to me that if I lost, it wouldn’t just be me that got punished but all the other kids I cared about. So I won. While most teenagers were taking tests in 10th grade, I was in the ring, killing another kid with my bare hands. But every time I won, things got just a little bit better for me and for the rest of the kids at Happy Family. I hadn’t asked for them, hadn’t ever really wanted them, but those kids were my family. Because of that, it was a really easy choice. Much easier than it should have been.

“Sixteen is considered ‘legal’ in Daedosi. Once you’re sixteen, you’re an adult. They kicked me out of Happy Family the day after my birthday. All I had was the clothes on my back, a suitcase full of a few random personal items and a cash card with $250 on it – a gift from Ralph. Don’t get me wrong. I thought about killing him before I left. I thought about killing every last one of them. But it wasn’t that simple. In a way, Happy Family was all these kids had. And some of them were _young_. Alone in Daedosi, they would have gotten murdered. Or worse. In a way, at least Happy Family was feeding them and keeping a roof over their heads. Maybe through fight rings and sex trafficking, we were all learning survival skills that would help sustain us later in life. I know it’s a really lame justification but I was sixteen and traumatized so it was the best I could come up with. Self-preservation is a powerful thing, I guess.

“I left Happy Family and never looked back. I moved to a different part of Daedosi and competed in private fight clubs until I had enough money to put myself through flight school. It was hell before that. I have a lot more scars than just the ones on my leg and there were a few times where I legitimately thought I was going to die but, damn it, I did it. I went to flight school on Jugeo and eventually I graduated, got a ship, met Hyoyeon and everything sort of fell into place.”

Hyuna took a deep breath, aware that she’d just said an awful lot without stopping. Somewhere along her way, she’d met Elly, fallen in love, had everything she could’ve ever hoped for and then squandered it all but she didn’t feel the need to say that part. Besides, Solji already knew all that.

“Anyway,” Hyuna said with a sigh, “I’m not telling you all this so you’ll feel bad for me. I actually don’t know _why_ I’m telling you at all. I guess I just want someone to know. Someone who isn’t my best friend and someone who isn’t laying on a mattress on the floor, hating my guts. I just wanted someone else to know what goes on in Daedosi. Sure, they’ve got beautiful architecture and incredible universities but they also help the Cosmos throw away the children of criminals, letting them be beaten and raped and killed all because their parents did something to piss off the government.”

It had been a long time since Hyuna had spoken of any of this. She knew it was cliché but she suddenly felt lighter, less tense. Sometimes talking about it really _did_ help. It would probably take another two years and another potentially galaxy-altering catastrophe to get her to open up again, but she had to admit that she felt better. Maybe there was something to this opening up stuff.

“Sorry,” she said when Solji’s silence was too loud. “I know that was probably a lot. You don’t have to say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say either.” She paused again, staring up at the bunk above her. “I’m going to get some sleep. You should do the same. Big things are coming our way this week. We should rest when we can. Good night.”

With that, Hyuna turned over, pulled the covers up to her shoulders and fell asleep.

Aside from the tears streaming down her face, Solji hadn’t moved an inch. She hoped that Hyuna didn’t think that she was rude or cold or judgmental, hoped she didn’t misinterpret her stunned silence for anything other than it was, but she knew that if she’d opened her mouth, she would’ve started sobbing. And who would’ve benefited from that?

She took a deep breath, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. Thanks to the levity she felt following her impromptu confession, Hyuna had fallen asleep in just a few minutes, but Solji knew that she wouldn’t be so lucky. Hyuna had spoken with such ease, telling the most incredible horror stories without flinching or even pausing to collect herself. How had she survived that? How had _any_ kid on Daedosi?

Hyuna was only twenty-five. Less than ten years had passed since she’d escaped Daedosi. Those orphanages were all still open. Happy Family was still open. Ralph was probably still sending kids to the A-League and torturing them if they couldn’t hold their own against other starving children. As Solji laid in the bottom bunk of a stuffy dorm, there were kids being raped and killed all because the Cosmos didn’t like their parents.

Perhaps indulgently, she thought of Hyerin. They’d had so many Code Pink fights over the topic of having kids. It would’ve been so easy for them to get pregnant and raise a healthy, happy, well-adjusted kid surrounded by love and luxury. But there were kids on Daedosi being forced to fight to the death, hoping against hope that killing another child would earn them something to eat.

She didn’t know how to accept a reality where any of that could be true. She didn’t know how to fold it up and lock it away. She didn’t know how to rectify any of it in her head.

Her hands were shaking and she squeezed them into fists trying to make them stop.

Desperately, she wished she could talk to her wife. Hyerin was compassionate, but street-wise. Maybe there was something she could’ve said to make this all better.

But she couldn’t talk to Hyerin. Not yet. Not now.

Instead, Solji pulled her blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes, the stale air of the barracks doing little to help dry the tears still on her cheeks.


	16. Chapter 16

Hwasa nearly choked on her gum when Taeyeon’s tablet rang with an incoming call from Heechul.

She couldn’t be sure why Taeyeon had left it behind. It was the tablet that was linked to the Termite’s communications system. Usually, it was just used as an extension of the existing system, something that Taeyeon would stow inside her bag when they left the ship. Because of that, the tablet wasn’t usually rendered fully-functional until the ship was powered down and the main communications server was turned off.

Presently, though, the Termite was still _very much_ on and soaring through the Cosmos system at warp speed, so there was no reason for a call to be rerouted to the tablet unless someone on-board the Termite had actively shut-down third-party communications.

But the damn thing was still ringing away and so Hwasa didn’t have much time to ponder who’d done it and why.

She glanced over her shoulder, gauging her surroundings. She was in her new room (a bit of a debate had followed the Termite’s merger, with Hyerin and Sooyoung trying to figure out just where the hell everybody would sleep) and behind her was a plain white wall. It was non-descript and even if it wasn’t, Heechul had never seen the interior of the Termite. As long as nothing on the wall said _THE UNITY, HOME TO HEO SOLJI AND HER BAND OF MERRY MISTFITS_ , he’d be none the wiser.

She took a deep breath, swiped to accept the call and said, “Greetings, interim bossman!”

Heechul looked about as nefarious as ever a bright green t-shirt and equally fluorescent yellow leather jacket. His hair was slicked back and she was pretty sure he was wearing eyeliner. Hwasa couldn’t help but wonder who dressed this guy – he was supposed to be a warlord, so why did he dress like a rodeo clown?

His eyes narrowed when he saw her, and she figured he was expecting Taeyeon.

“Hwasa,” he said somewhat flatly. “I remember you from our first correspondence. Where’s your captain?”

The truth was that Taeyeon and the other captains were currently en route to Misul, a Cosmos planet in the opposite direction. More specifically, though, they were headed for Chim-7, one of Misul’s moons. They were following the tracker to Jiyong’s location and once they’d gotten close enough, Taeyeon was able to figure out exactly where they were going.

Some moons, specifically those on the Banseong side of the Cosmos system, were rich with valuable minerals. Just like how Cheoeum’s ecosystem relied on mining, planets like Misul (a scenic, populous liberal arts planet usually inhabited only by the super wealthy) outsourced their exporting to mines located on their highly profitable moons.

Famed criminal Kwon Jiyong was hiding out on a moon mine.

Hyuna had cursed in English _and_ Korean when Taeyeon told her.

“A moon mine,” she muttered, pacing frantically. “Talk about hiding in plain sight. It’s so obvious, it’s almost stupid. God, how did I not think of that?” She swore under her breath a few more times, switching between languages with frustrating ease as she stomped about the tiny cockpit. “All this time, he’s been right under our noses. He’s been right here in our damn solar system!”

“I guess it is kind of genius,” Solji said from the kitchenette booth a few feet away. “Everyone figured he’d try to get as far away from home as possible. In reality, he’d stayed put and everyone _else_ scattered themselves across the universe.”

“Damn him,” Hyuna said, rolling her eyes and sighing and carrying on because she genuinely couldn’t believe that she’d never considered that Jiyong would’ve stuck around and hunkered down on a freaking _moon mine_. It was stupid and brilliant all at once. He’d probably cut and dyed his hair, popped in some colored contacts and gotten a miner job under a different name.

The whole ‘verse was engaged in a full-on manhunt for him, flying all over the galaxy and leaving no stone unturned, and Kwon Jiyong was probably digging around silver deposits and taking regular lunch breaks with his new coworkers.

There was something maddeningly frustrating about that, Hyuna decided.

Back on the Unity, though, Hwasa was trying to come up with some seamless lie without letting any hesitation or dishonesty shine onto her pretty face. Heechul reminded her of a shark – the slightest trace of blood in the water and he’d be all over her.

“She’s headed back the other way,” Hwasa said, deciding quickly that a half-lie might work in her favor. “Towards Misul.”

Heechul raised an eyebrow.

“And where are _you_ exactly?”

“Geum Haneul,” Hwasa offered. “Family emergency. The girls dropped me off a few days ago before heading towards Gachug and now they’re going to Misul. Following up on a lead that Amber found. Taeyeon left me the tablet so that I could stay in contact with them, but I think something happened to the communications system on their end because they haven’t been picking up. It’s probably why I got your call instead of them. Small ships seem to have inherent technological problems. Less room for the wires to do their thing, I guess.”

Heechul was still for a moment and Hwasa held her breath. The explanation was a little _too_ perfect but she was hoping she’d sold it.

After another few seconds, Heechul nodded and said, “I guess that makes sense. I’ve been tracking the ship for the last few weeks and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why you were bouncing from one end of the system to another. Why would you need to go to Geum Haneul?” He laughed to himself and Hwasa swallowed hard. So he _was_ tracking their ship. She’d been really, really worried about that. Once he was done chortling, he seemed to look her up and down, or as best he could through his computer’s screen. “So, what’s the emergency?”

“A sick aunt,” Hwasa said. She really _did_ have relatives on Geum Haneul and if need be, one of the hackers could probably upload some phony hospital bills and travel invoices. “My parents wanted me here to help out.”

“Missing out on all the fun of a space-hunt to help a sick relative?” Heechul made a _tsk_ noise but still smiled his sinister smile. “I guess that makes you a good daughter. I really do need to speak to Taeyeon, though. How would you recommend I get into contact with her?”

Hwasa could think of a few obscene recommendations she had for Heechul, but bit her tongue.

“I can’t give you her personal contact information,” Hwasa said, her tone approaching steely at a dangerous rate. “But I can reach out to her or one of the other girls. Even if the ship’s communications system is down, she can probably pop into a refueling station and use their internet. I’ll make sure she reaches out to you by the end of the day.”

Heechul smiled, something that never failed to make him look five times more menacing, and said, “Thank you, Hwasa. Best wishes to your aunt. Shall I send your family flowers in this trying time?”

There was something just slightly suspicious in his tone, like maybe he didn’t _quite_ believe every word she’d said, but Hwasa didn’t falter.

“That won’t be necessary,” she said, forcing a bright smile, “but thank you for your continued generosity.”

She held that fake smile, almost willing her cheeks to crack, until the call disconnected. Once the screen to the tablet went dark, she threw it to the end of the bed and shuddered like just being near it would somehow infect her with a gross, soul-sapping parasite. And then, once the initial and shocking grossness wore off, Hwasa jumped out of bed and high-tailed it to the computer room where she knew the three technical analysts would be working tirelessly to help aid the Termite in their journey.

Because if what Heechul said was true, then they suddenly had much bigger fish to fry.

If he really _was_ tracking the ship, it was only a matter of time before he found out the truth. It was only a matter of time before he realized he’d been double-crossed, and that the woman he’d hired to track down Jiyong had actually jumped ship and joined forces with Seunghyun and the rest of Jiyong’s crew.

Hwasa didn’t know much about private military or the men that kept it afloat, but she had an inkling that Heechul wasn’t the type of man who much liked being betrayed.

And if he uncovered the truth sooner rather than later, then the Termite would become something of a ticking time bomb, each lightyear that brought them closer to Jiyong also bringing them closer to a fate worse than death.

They had a just little over three days to get Jiyong to the Bermhole and that was _without_ the added strain of Heechul tracking the Termite’s every move.

Swallowing hard, and cursing herself for ever encouraging Taeyeon to answer that first video call, Hwasa ran faster.

They were running out of time, and as she turned the corner that would lead her to Yuri’s office, Hwasa couldn’t help but wonder if they’d all unwittingly signed themselves up for a suicide mission.

* * *

Elly had never slept in an engine room before.

There were major differences between these lodgings and her room on the Unity. The engine room was noisy and everything smelled like grease. The mattress _did_ squeak and the blanket _was_ itchy but to her, it may as well have been a five-star hotel.

It was dingy, sure, but it was private and in her current state, that was just about all she could ask for.

She could now say with the utmost confidence and certainty that it _sucked_ getting shot with a shock-dart. Beyond the horrible physical pain (and _that_ was unlike anything she’d ever experienced), she was also completely mortified, unable to cope with the fact that she’d been so vulnerable in front of the other captains. She’d already been the weak link in the group _before_ they’d seen her cry like a baby.

To their credit, everyone had been super cool about it. They made sure that she was okay and then gave her some privacy, leaving her to sleep it off in the engine room. They brought her water, more pillows, checked in just about once an hour to make sure she wasn’t dead or paralyzed. They decided amongst themselves that she needed to take a few shifts off to recuperate and that was fine by Elly, especially since she couldn’t even _feel_ her leg once the pain wore off. How could she fly if she couldn’t even stand?

They were all upset on Elly’s behalf, frustrated that someone had managed to join them on Gachug and pissed off that someone had shot at them. They had all been really supportive, even Hyuna.

 _Especially_ Hyuna, in fact. That was what made things so weird.

Hyuna was the one who’d saved Elly, the one who’d put her to bed and brought her food and pain pills. She’d been incredibly brave, fearless, competent, but also soft, compassionate and understanding. Actually, it reminded Elly of all the reasons she’d fallen in love with Hyuna to begin with. Hyuna was tough as nails, the kind of person who’d throw someone onto their back and run towards an onslaught of bullets and then turn right around and make them a bowl of noodles to cheer them up.

It was a tough pill to swallow. It was hard enough being in such close proximity to Kim Hyuna _without_ her ex-girlfriend saving her life and taking such good care of her. And every time Elly remembered the genuine relief she’d felt when Hyuna picked her up off the ground on Gachug or the swell of affection and gratitude that had come with being taken care of again, her heart suddenly hurt worse than her leg.

She tried not to think about it.

It was dangerous, dangerous territory and Elly didn’t need any more danger in her very immediate future.

Instead, she focused on the engine room. The tiny, humid, filthy energy room. There was something comforting about it, especially after spending time on the spotlessly-clean, state-of-the-art Unity. Something about the engine’s room simplicity (and, quite frankly, it’s grime) reminded Elly of the Pandora – it reminded her of home. When it came to ships, she always had been a fan of the rustic underdogs.

It reminded her that she hadn’t had a chance to properly mourn the Pandora. Too much had happened in the direct aftermath of its destruction, the kind of universe-altering discoveries that sort of trumped the loss of a rickety old ship that meant nothing to anyone who wasn’t the captain.

But Elly _was_ the captain and that had been her first ship, the first thing in the world that was truly _hers_. Solji had payed to get it towed back to Geum Haneul and the Pandora, or what was left of it, was now sitting in what was essentially the refueling station’s impound lot. When all was said and done and they were free to go back to their old lives (assuming that no one was killed, maimed or imprisoned in the process, of course), Elly would have to return to her ship and assess the damages.

But she knew that that was simply a formality. She and the girls would pack up whatever hadn’t been crushed or charred and then Elly would need to decide to do with the wreckage. Would she junk the Pandora and cut her losses, or would she have it repaired?

It was nice to consider the latter but it wasn’t a remotely realistic option. It would actually cost less to get a whole new ship than it would to get the Pandora back in the air. Even before Choi Sooyoung had effectively broken it in half like a Lego spaceship, the Pandora had been on its last legs. Leaks and cracks and hardware failures had rendered it next-to-useless, and obsolete software made it a struggle just to keep the lights and gravity working properly.

Trying to salvage it would be needlessly expensive, not to mention next-to-impossible, and Elly needed to be practical enough to understand the reality of the situation. She was the captain, after all. Her crew, however meager, looked to her to make choices that affected all of them. She needed to be pragmatic even if it hurt.

The Pandora was gone. It bittersweet – bitter for Elly but sweet for Sunny and Moonbyul who would no longer suffer the undue side effects of their captain’s nostalgia.

Sunny and Moonbyul were back on the Unity, living and working in the lap of luxury, while Elly hurdled through space in a shoebox-sized super ship, a still-throbbing shock-dart wound in her leg, her fearless-yet-compassionate ex-girlfriend lurking around every corner and the entire fate of the universe on her shoulders.

Honestly, Elly longed for the days where potentially pawning her father’s watch for gas money was her biggest problem.

Though it was somewhat of a stray thought, Elly decided that she missed the doctor. Off the top of her head, she could think of more than a few reasons why she’d be glad to have Seo Hyerin on-board. For starters, it really would have been helpful to have had her there in the aftermath of the shock-dart. Sure, Hyuna was more qualified than most on the subject, but Elly sure would have felt better being tended to by someone with a medical degree.

Beyond that, it would have been nice to have the companionship. Elly really liked the doctor. They clicked. She was smart and reasonable and practical. Elly would feel comfortable opening up to her – about Hyuna, about the once-great Pandora, about everything – and Hyerin would probably have some sage advice for her, some anecdote wrapped in sarcasm that softened the blow of whatever harsh truth she was delivering.

Plus it would be really nice to have some more painkillers and maybe a Xanax.

But Hyerin, like Sunny and Moonbyul, were far, far away, too far to help Elly and too far to do her any good.

No, Elly was on her own. But it was better this way. She’d prefer it if her friends, old and new, didn’t see her like this. It was bad enough that the other captains did. She’d much rather Sunny, Moonbyul and Hyerin hold onto whatever shred of respect they had for her.

Besides, with no ship, no girlfriend and no functional left leg, what else did she really have?

Huffing, Elly rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

Lots of cobwebs up there. Or, at least, she hoped it was cobwebs. Spiderwebs would be… infinitely worse. How did Amber let it get it get so dusty in here? She supposed she couldn’t complain. Amber _was_ letting her have her room, even if she didn’t know anything about it. Maybe, once she could fully stand again, she’d clean up as a token of her gratitude. The Termite was so small. Where did they keep their vacuum attachments?

The doorknob rattled. A second later, Elly heard the now-familiar sound of the engine room’s door scratching against the floor. Christ, even the _door_ was too small.

“I’m good, Solji,” Elly said, not bothering to sit up or turn to face the entrance. She’d quickly gotten used to playing the patient and she appreciated the captains’ hospitality. “I already ate.”

“I didn’t bring you any food.”

Elly swallowed hard.

That voice wasn’t Solji’s.

She pushed herself up so that she was sitting, then looked Kim Hyuna up and down. Her heart drummed against her bones, betraying her serenity.

“You don’t need to check on me,” she said, hoping the surprise and the emotion in her voice didn’t sound as clear to Hyuna as intense as they felt in her chest.

“Sure I do,” Hyuna said. She was dressed casually, meaning that it was her off-shift, and she shoved her hands into the pockets of her grey sweatpants as she spoke. “The responsibility of the captain.”

Elly rolled her eyes.

“You’re not the captain of this ship.”

Hyuna smirked and said, “Maybe not. But I still give a fuck.”

_If you gave a fuck, why’d you cheat on me?_

It was an intrusive thought, one that had Elly’s cheeks burning crimson the second it crossed her mind’s eye. Thoughts like that? They did nothing to heal her wounded leg or mend her still-broken heart and so they were forcefully expelled any time one managed to sneak past her mental filter. She had walls up inside her head and around her heart, an entire security system meant to keep her safe and whole.

But sometimes, some thoughts were quick enough to sneak by.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t think she had anything in her head worth saying out loud, and Hyuna seemed fueled by her silence.

“But really,” she said, pushing off the doorframe and moving closer to where Elly sat on the mattress, “how’s your leg?” With every step she took, Elly felt her heart rate rise, beating harder and harder in time with Hyuna’s movements. “I’ve been there and I get it. Most people aren’t used to getting blasted with concentrated electricity like that. It’s not something everyone has experienced like a burn or a cut and the pain is hard to describe. But _I_ get it and that’s all the more reason you need to swallow your pride and tell me how you’re feeling so I can help you.”

Hyuna may have understood the mechanics and the subsequent physical repercussions of a shock-dart but she didn’t understand a thing about Elly.

Elly wasn’t giving her the silent treatment because her ego was too big to accept help. It had nothing to do with her pride and everything to do with their history. Elly felt like a broken record those days, replaying the same parts of their past over and over and over again in her head. Having Hyuna with her like this, standing just a few feet away and trying to take care of her, was about all that she could take.

She understood that there were greater forces at play. She understood that she was in a ship that was currently en route to pick up Kwon Jiyong and help save the universe. She understood that there were so much bigger things going on but goddamn it, she couldn’t shake it.

How could Hyuna be so impartial, so aloof? How was she still _this_ okay? Didn’t she remember the night they met? Didn’t she remember their first date, their first kiss? Didn’t she remember the first time they slept together, or that time they’d gotten locked out of Elly’s apartment and spent the night roaming the streets downtown? The time they’d both gotten too drunk to drive home and spent the night in Hyuna’s car, talking aimlessly about whatever crossed their minds until they watched the sun come up and illuminate the golden sky on Geum Haneul?

Didn’t she remember? Or did she just not care?

She was too professional, too unmoving, too stoic.

Whenever they were in a room together, Elly felt lightheaded, dizzied by the memories, by the smell of her perfume, by the sheer fact that they were together again after all this time. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t power through and make the most of it like Hyuna. And why should she? How _could_ she? Hyuna was her first love – the _only_ woman she’d ever loved. She’d been sure that she’d spend the rest of her life with Hyuna, sure that she’d marry her someday. And it all came crashing down one night. No warning, no closure and for no damn good reason.

What right did Hyuna have to waltz back into her life after two years, completely unfazed and looking better than ever with lighter hair and an even tougher, faux-badass persona to go with her military boots? Why did she get to stay the rockstar that she always was when Elly had never, and would never, be the same? Hyuna was the one who’d cheated. She was the one who’d fucked it all up and decided she wasn’t in love anymore. Why did she get off scot-free while Elly had to suffer forever? Why did she get to stand there and look effortlessly stunning in grey sweatpants while Elly lay on a dirty floor-bed with a small hole in her leg and an even bigger one in her heart?

How was that fair? Hyuna was all about the duties of the captain and the fairness and justice in the Cosmos, but where was the justice in all this?

“I’m fine,” Elly said, the biggest lie ever told. She looked away, her eyes falling onto some broken piece of machinery atop Amber’s desk. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Hyuna looked troubled but her expression was gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Let me see,” she said, suddenly standing at the edge of the mattress. As if preemptively sensing Elly’s recoil, she pointed to Amber’s desk chair. “Sit. I’ll be quick. I promise.”

“You’re not a doctor,” Elly said, the verbal equivalent of flailing her arms in a fistfight. She had no moves, no retorts, no willpower to come up with anything witty or impressive.

“Neither is anyone else on this ship,” Hyuna stated plainly. “But I’ve got more shock-dart experience than anyone this side of the Plasma Belt so just humor me please. I won’t be able to get any decent sleep until I know there’s no permanent damage.”

Elly tried to hide her pained grimace as she moved reluctantly from the mattress to the chair. Hyuna was as stubborn as a mule, something Elly knew more than a little about, and she knew Hyuna wouldn’t budge an inch until she got what she wanted. Mortifying as it was, humoring her for ten seconds seemed worth it to get rid of her for the rest of the shift.

“I thought you said one dart wouldn’t do any real damage,” Elly countered, settling into Amber’s chair with a dejected huff.

“I _did_ say that. But one-in-a-million stuff can happen.” She sighed when she realized Elly was just busting her balls and then said, “I just like to make sure, okay? You know that. You know me.”

And she _did_ know Hyuna. She knew her all too well, knew her better than anyone. That was what made this all so impossible. How could she know someone _so_ well while they were still basically a stranger? What had Hyuna been up to these last two years? How many things had she stolen? How many people had she fought with, or killed? How many girls had she slept with?

Hyuna crouched before ultimately sitting on the edge of the mattress, something that inexplicably made Elly’s heart jump into her throat. Once she was seated, and once the initial wave of shock passed, Hyuna gestured to Elly expectantly.

“What?”

“Pull up your pant leg,” Hyuna said, almost incredulously. Elly gasped, apparently scandalized, and Hyuna rolled her eyes. Reaching her hands out tentatively, Hyuna said, “What? You really prefer if _I_ do it?”

It was that sort of deadpanned sarcasm that made Hyuna so dangerous. Quips like that were almost singlehandedly responsible for Elly falling into bed with her that first time.

Elly bit the inside of her cheek and conceded, begrudgingly reaching down to the hem of her pants and slowly rolling it up to reveal the wound on her left thigh. Elly actually hadn’t bothered to take a look at it since it first happened but now, she stifled a gasp.

It didn’t look life-threatening but it didn’t look _great_. Her skin was swollen, welted. It looked almost like a target the way it was divided into rings. The outermost ring was a startling white. (Elly had always been pale, something Sunny pointed out frequently, but this was certainly the whitest she’d ever been. The normal, unaffected skin next to it actually looked _tan_ by comparison.) Then, inside of that, a swollen, puffy ring of dark red ached and throbbed. And then, in the very center, surrounding the actual wound where she’d been struck, was a dark purple bruise about the size of a quarter.

Elly considered swearing to express her surprise and disgust but then she looked down at Hyuna and noticed a complete lack of worry on her face. Perhaps this was standard day-after-a-shock-dart fare.

“You still gonna try and tell me this doesn’t hurt?” Hyuna asked, looking up at her in seemingly apathetic disbelief.

Elly licked her lips and traced a light finger over the white ring, then shrugged.

“It doesn’t _tickle_ , I guess.” She shifted uncomfortably, made uneasy by the lack of distance between them. They were far too close, and Elly was far too exposed. Hyuna just nodded slowly, the gears in her head turning and bringing her to some conclusion she didn’t verbalize.

“Okay,” she said, running a finger tentatively across Elly’s thigh, something that would’ve made her cry out if the pain wasn’t completely secondary to the shock of suddenly being touched by Kim Hyuna. Fighting the urge to recoil like she’d been electrocuted (again), Elly looked away and bit the inside of her cheek until blood threatened to fill her mouth. “It’s not infected.  It looks like you’ll make a full recovery. You should feel one-hundred percent in a day or two.” Sighing, Hyuna leaned back a little. Elly looked back at her. She knew that sigh.

Though her voice was shaky, she asked, “What is it?”

Hyuna shook her head, smirking regretfully, then said, “I’m just real fucking sorry is all.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry that you got shot,” she said simply, but Elly knew that that wasn’t it. “It should’ve been me.”

Elly snorted incredulously and asked, “How do you figure that?”

Hyuna shrugged.

“I should’ve been the one to go get the tracker,” she said.

“We agreed I would be the most unsuspecting person to get it,” Elly said. Hyuna was staring off into space and Elly used the opportunity to get a closer look at her. Since their reunion on the aptly-named Unity, Elly had been almost too afraid to look at her directly, like looking at Hyuna was somehow the same as looking into the sun. It was blinding, dangerous, an all-around bad idea.

Looking at her now, though, brought back feelings that Elly had hoped she’d buried. Hyuna looked soft, domestic, reminding Elly of all the lazy Sundays spent in her apartment back when they first started dating and lined up their schedules to spend more time together. There was something very sweet about Hyuna back then, and there was something very genuine in her tone now. She truly felt guilty that Elly had gotten hurt, and wished that she’d been able to shoulder the pain instead.

She looked remorseful. Beyond that, she looked beautiful.

Her finger still ghosted across Elly’s skin and the sensation, however light, flooded all of Elly’s senses. She’d fallen for Kim Hyuna so hard, and so fast, and it had been so easy. She was everything Elly ever wanted – an impossible combination of strength and softness. She was fearless, generous, witty, and so goddamned beautiful.

“I think you’ve gotten enough shock-darts to last a lifetime,” Elly said, swallowing hard. Hyuna wasn’t looking at her. Instead, her eyes were fixed on Elly’s skin. Her fingers moved away from the wound, traveling instead to undamaged skin. Here, there was no pain to distract Elly from Hyuna’s touches. Hyuna wasn’t checking for damages or infection, wasn’t making sure Elly was healthy and unscarred. She was touching Elly because she _wanted_ to touch Elly, and Elly didn’t have the strength or the resolve to tell her to stop.

“Exactly,” said Hyuna, almost whispering. “What’s one more?”

Elly’s mouth went dry. Hyuna’s touches were tender, soft, moving dangerously higher.

“Hyuna,” she said, but it came out like more of an exhale.

“It’s not the only thing I’m sorry about,” Hyuna went on, her tough-guy façade _finally_ beginning to crack after weeks of unyielding resolve and stoicism. She looked up at Elly, and Elly almost gasped aloud to see tears brimming in her eyes. “I don’t know why I did it, Hyojin. Okay? I know that’s not what you want to hear. I know that’s not a good enough answer. I know it’s been two years and that I should have something better to say but I don’t.” She looked away again and wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. Her other hand stayed right where it was, fingertips burning Elly’s skin.

“You don’t have to do this,” Elly said, the desire to comfort Hyuna almost overwhelming. All this time she’d been accusing Hyuna of being bulletproof, of being too blasé, of being completely unaffected. In reality, the opposite was a thousand times worse. Seeing Hyuna cry made getting shot seem like a paper cut. When it came down to it, even after all this time, it seemed that Elly was just as willing to take on Hyuna’s pain as Hyuna was willing to take on Elly’s.

“Yes,” Hyuna said, catching Elly’s eyes. She had to make her understand. She didn’t do it years and she’d regretted it every single day since. “I do. I was never in love with Nana. I didn’t even _like_ Nana. I loved you. I’ve always loved you. I was hurt and I was lonely and I was weak and I hurt you. I broke us. I didn’t realize the damage I’d caused until it was too late. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I saw it on Moonbyul’s face. And I don’t know how to apologize for that, Hyojin. I’ve never known how to fix it.”

 _You can’t_.

Another intrusive thought past the filter.

Hyuna inched closer. The hand not on Elly’s thigh moved to rest on her hip, pulling Elly closer to the edge of the chair.

“I can’t take it back,” she said, speaking softly. Elly couldn’t miss the way Hyuna’s eyes dropped to stare at her lips. “But I’ve always wanted to make it up to you.”

Elly blinked. She was pretty sure everything was moving in slow motion. This was a bad idea. This was _such_ a bad idea and she knew it. So why couldn’t she say no? How was it possible for her heart and her mind to be so far apart? What her body knew it wanted and what her brain knew it needed were so different. Hyuna licked her lips, the smallest of motions, and Elly felt her weakening resolve fading faster.

“Will you let me?” Hyuna asked, almost whispering. Her right hand finally left Elly’s thigh, moving instead to trace dangerously across the waistband of Elly’s pajama pants.

Two years. It was simultaneously such a long time, and the blink of an eye. When was the last time she’d had sex with Hyuna? A week or two before Hyuna had slept with Nana. It was shower sex, a quickie, something spontaneous but otherwise unspectacular. That was the thing about last times – you rarely ever knew it _was_ a last time.

Once the initial heartbreak had ebbed, Elly had slept with a lot of girls trying to get over Hyuna. It never worked. It never even made a dent. No one ever came close to making her feel as good as Hyuna did, and she tended to walk away each time feeling even emptier than she had before.

Eventually, she just stopped trying. What was the point in trying to date? The Pandora was such a money-suck that she didn’t even have the funds to take a nice girl out on a date. Even if she could afford it, who would want her? She knew who she was, what she was. Hyuna hadn’t cheated because Elly was the perfect girlfriend. She’d cheated because Elly had sucked at being in a relationship.

She was too independent, too introverted, too in-her-own head. She was forgetful, absent, inattentive.

Who would ever fall in love with her? She’d gotten her chance – Hyuna – and she’d blown it.

So she’d stopped dating.

How long had it been since she’d had sex with _anyone_?

Though Hyuna’s hand lingered patiently, waiting for explicit permission from Elly before going any further, her lips moved closer, leaving only millimeters between her and Elly.

“Hyojin,” she breathed, her left hand gripping Elly’s waist with a familiar, almost comforting possessiveness, “I’m so fucking sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Elly wasn’t sure if she’d kissed Hyuna, or if Hyuna had kissed her. All she knew was that, all these years later, they still fit together like they’d been made for each other. Even with all of their history, all of the baggage and the pain, it still felt like the first time. Hyuna still felt the same. Hyuna still tasted the same. All of it came flooding back – every kiss from the first to the last – and Elly felt her head swimming.

She reached down and cupped Hyuna’s face with her hands, an instinct. Her body and her brain had duked it out, but her body had won. In Elly’s experience, the body always won.

She kissed Hyuna like the world around them was set to end, and who could be sure that it wasn’t? She pulled her closer, forgetting all about her leg, forgetting all about Jiyong, forgetting all about Nana. Hyuna pressed her fingers against Elly’s stomach, reminding her that she was there, and though every nerve-ending in Elly’s body screamed _yes_ , her brain scolded her for her foolishness.

But what was the point of fighting it? Submission. Forgiveness. Desire. It had all morphed into one feeling, and it felt a whole lot like _need_ , a burning, all-consuming need. She needed this, and she needed Hyuna. Hyuna needed it, too. Maybe neither of them were as strong as Elly thought.

 

Elly nodded, not bothering to break the kiss, and Hyuna didn’t waste a single second. Seamlessly, she slipped her right hand beneath the waistband of Elly’s pants, and sighed heavily, contentedly against Elly’s lips when her fingers were met only with skin. Hyuna’s middle finger found exactly what it was looking for, stroking from her clit to her entrance over and over until Elly was whimpering.

Elly pulled away from the kiss enough to rest her head on Hyuna’s shoulder, not quite ready to look her in the eye or admit to any intimacy or vulnerability. But the body always won out and Elly couldn’t help the way her hips canted up to meet Hyuna’s hand.

She remembered now why it was never the same with those other girls from bars on Geum Haneul – no one knew how to touch her like Hyuna did. No one even came close.

When Hyuna slid two long fingers inside of her, curling them to hit every sweet spot she knew so well, Elly saw stars. She cried out loudly enough that there was no way Solji and Taeyeon _couldn’t_ hear her, but that was a problem for later. (In the back of her mind, Elly knew that there were going to be _lots_ of problems to deal with later.)

She kissed Hyuna again, halfway hoping to shut herself up, but still found herself grinding against her hand.

How could it still feel this good? It was as if nothing had changed, like the last two years had never happened. They might as well have been back in their old apartment, blowing off social commitments to spend the whole day in bed. With all that happened between them, with everyone they’d lost, how could it still be this good?

“Come here,” Hyuna whispered. She pulled her hand away from Elly just long enough to wrap her arms around her, pulling her off the chair but being mindful of her leg. As gracefully as she could, and reminding Elly of the strength that had saved her the day before, Hyuna picked Elly up and laid her gently onto the squeaking mattress.

Laying there, lips swollen, body pulsing and looking up at Hyuna was the most vulnerable Ahn Elly had ever felt, but no single part of her was ready for it to stop.

Hyuna looked her over, a hunger in her eyes and a victorious smirk on her lips, and said, “You’re still the most beautiful girl in the Cosmos.”

Elly felt drunk.

“You are,” she retorted, sure she was slurring. Careful not to touch the bruise (the truth was it didn’t matter – the only thing Elly could feel was the increasing throb between her legs), Hyuna pulled Elly’s pants off her body and dropped them off the side of the mattress. She dropped to her stomach, and gripped the bottom of Elly’s thighs.

Hyuna always _had_ been something of a miracle-worker with her tongue.

“I still love you,” she mumbled, her lips against Elly’s thigh. “You know that, right?”

On her back like this, the tears flowed much easier from the corners of Elly’s eyes.

“I still love you,” she countered. That was what Hyuna wanted to hear, but it was also the God’s honest truth. Pleased, Hyuna went right to work, tongue delving through Elly’s folds and drawing another raw cry from her lips. It was somewhere between a moan and a sob. How could something that felt so good be so bad for her? How was it possible for Elly to have this much clarity, even in the heat of the moment? This was all she ever wanted. This is what she’d been missing for two years. So how did she know right away that it was wrong? And why couldn’t she stop herself?

As her hands moved down to tangle in Hyuna’s hair, she forced herself to let everything else fall away. There’d be time for it all later. She could deal with it all then.

In the last two years, she’d become something of a master dealing with the fallout.

For now, though, she’d let Hyuna try and make it up to her, knowing full well that no amount of sex, no matter how earth-shattering it might be, could ever put the pieces of _them_ back together.

Her body was on fire, pleasure and heat wrapping around her spine and crackling through her limbs like lightning. She moaned Hyuna’s name like she used to way back when, and let herself get so lost in the feeling of Hyuna’s lips and tongue that everything else simply faded into the background.

No Kwon Jiyong, no space-race, no bounty, no Berm.

Just her and Hyuna, just like the old days.

With submission and desire came defeat and regret, but Elly couldn’t find it in herself to give a fuck. Not now. Not when Hyuna wasn’t quite as strong as she seemed, and Elly wasn’t quite as weak she felt. There was something comforting in the chaos, something strangely familiar in the way none of it made any sense. Elly decided, if only for a minute, that she didn’t deserve to be in pain anymore.

She knew she’d regret it, and she knew she was giving Hyuna the power to crush her all over again, but she’d let Hyuna make it up to her. And everything bad that came along with it? Those were problems for the fallout. She’d deal with them when she was stronger. For now, she’d let herself be weak, let herself be taken care of, let herself feel good.

Thanks to her new friends, the world wasn’t over just yet, and she could deal with it all in the morning.

She just hoped, somehow, that it would hurt less the second time around.


	17. Chapter 17

Moonbyul iced her lip with a bag of frozen peas.

She’d been too embarrassed to admit her spat to the doctor, too ashamed that she’d gotten caught up in a personal feud in the middle of a universe-altering scavenger hunt _and_ too ashamedtot admit that she’d gotten knocked on her ass, so she let Yoona assess her wound and write a prescription.

“Peas are good,” she’d said, digging them out of the freezer, “because you can move them around. They’ll mold to the shape of your mouth.” She cracked a smile and added, “I’d give you a steak, but we don’t give out the _expensive_ ice packs to our guests.”

Solar, who’d been standing close by, her eyes never leaving Moonbyul, faked a polite laugh, realizing that Yoona was just trying to lighten the mood, but Moonbyul was too dazed to do anything but nod.

How did she get here?

She skulked back to her new room – though she felt it was more like a _pod_ – with her tail between her legs.

As much as she’d bitched about it while it was still in the sky, Moonbyul kind of missed the Pandora. Sure, it was rickety. The fuel tank leaked, they had no escape pod, the engine was a _dinosaur_ and sometimes the gravity controls bugged out, but at least it was theirs. Her room had been _hers_ , filled to the brim with hand-picked decorations and personal effects, none of which she’d had a chance to properly mourn. Everything had happened so fast – looking for Jiyong, losing their ship, meeting the crew from the Unity, reuniting with Hyuna and Hyoyeon, joining forces and kind-of-sort-of ambushing the Termite, teaming up with Jiyong’s friends to try and save the universe. She’d blinked and her whole world had changed.

There were millions of human lives at stake, not to mention the seemingly immeasurable number of Berm in danger, so Moonbyul couldn’t sit around and cry about her comic books and posters or the journals her mother had given her. She was sure that there’d be time for that later, _after_ they all saved the world.

Her lip throbbed.

Hyoyeon had a mean right hook.

What surprised Moonbyul the most was that it had never come to blows before. They’d certainly gotten into each other’s faces in the past, though they almost always made sure to do so away from Elly and Hyuna. Usually, the only person to bear witness to how much Moonbyul and Hyoyeon hated each other was Sunny, and Sunny, the ultimate peacemaker, would never let them square up.

(It was weird. Sunny had just as much of a problem with Hyuna as Moonbyul did, but her feelings never seemed to carry over to Hyoyeon. If Moonbyul approached the situation thinking that a man was known by the company he kept, then Sunny preferred to hold people responsible for _their_ sins and theirs alone. Fundamental differences, Moonbyul figured. She was a realist, and a cynical one at that, but Sunny saw the good in people. Somehow, she even saw the good in Kim Hyoyeon.)

So why now? After everything they’d been though, taking into account all of their history, and despite of the times they’d gotten drunk and gotten under each other’s skin, why had Hyoyeon waited until _now_ to throw a punch?

Was it simply the intensity of the situation? Hyoyeon was an intense person. She liked to be an active player, liked to be in on the action. The Juggernaut didn’t have a full crew – it had always been just Hyuna and Hyoyeon. Because of that Hyoyeon was always right there in the thick of it, boots on the ground, ready to play, ready to fight. Now she was docked, twiddling her thumbs, while Hyuna went off to help save the world. Was it possible that Hyoyeon was just itching for a fight? Had being benched right before the biggest game of her life left Hyoyeon hungry for confrontation, desperate for a little adrenaline?

Moonbyul swallowed hard, then pulled her phone from her pocket. Putting the bag of peas beside her on the bed, she turned on the front-camera and looked at her lip. The ice was helping, but it was still swollen. She’d look ugly for a few days. Was this her penance?

Because while the ‘Hyoyeon is just a powder keg and was looking for a fight wherever she could’ argument was reasonable, there was another argument that, regretfully, seemed a lot more likely and made a lot more sense.

Moonbyul had been flailing in the kitchen, trying to get a rise out of Hyoyeon because, in reality, _she_ was itching for a fight. _She_ was upset about being left behind and _she_ wanted something better to do. She’d exaggerated, pontificated, screamed like a crazy person, and had even said things she’d hadn’t totally meant. Though her feud with Hyoyeon had always centered around Elly’s relationship with Hyuna, their arguments usually stayed focused on each other. This was the first time in a while, possibly the first time ever, that truly tackled their feelings on the other’s best friend.

And though Moonbyul had called Hyuna a slut and a whore and a dragon lady, Hyoyeon had taken it all in stride, smiling the same stupid, smug, unfazed smile as always. It wasn’t until Moonbyul started throwing out hyperbolic scenarios that Hyoyeon had cocked her fist.

_“I don’t give a_ _shit_ _what Hyuna’s been through. Her past does not excuse away her future. She doesn’t get a pass, Hyoyeon. I don’t care if she was tied up and shipped to a labor camp on Byeongsa.”_

That had ushered no response. But…

_“I don’t care if she was sold off to a Berm-fighting ring on some shitty outlier rock.”_

Boom. A shot to the mouth.

Moonbyul swallowed again, her mouth suddenly dry. (Hey, at least it wasn’t filled with blood, right?)

She hadn’t meant any of it literally. She’d been exaggerating, putting on a show, trying to piss Hyoyeon off. Sunny always told her she was too dramatic, and maybe, like always, Sunny had been right. Hyuna had always been a skilled fighter. Hand-to-hand combat was sort of her thing. Moonbyul had never asked where she’d learned to fight. She’d also never asked her anything about her past, not about her parents or her childhood. Sure, she knew about her dad. That was pretty common knowledge in their circle. (The government might not have known about Hyuna’s father, but their friends all did. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but that was because the type of people Hyuna hung out with weren’t exactly on friendly terms with the Cosmos anyway. Even if they knew, what would they do about it?)

Was it possible that Hyuna _had_ spent time in a fighting ring? Not a Berm-fighting ring, since Moonbyul was 95% sure she’d made that term up _as_ she said it, but something more realistic? Was it possible that Kim Hyuna’s origin story, the one that Moonbyul had never once asked Elly about, was actually a lot darker and a lot more tragic than she ever realized?

It wasn’t just possible, Moonbyul realized all at once, feeling about as low as anyone else on Geum Haneul. It was _likely_.

She thought back to that night in Elly’s apartment, the night she’d found Hyuna with Nana. Yeah, that night was memorable for a bunch of reasons. It was, for all intents and purposes, the night that Elly and Hyuna’s relationship ended, and a painful milestone in Moonbyul’s friendship with Elly, but it was also the first (and only) time Moonbyul had seen Hyuna naked.

The way Moonbyul chose to remember it, she walked into Elly’s bedroom, saw Hyuna and Nana, and immediately stormed out, but the truth was that she was so stunned and so disgusted that she lingered for a moment. In that moment, she’d seen Hyuna’s scars.

After that, much like with the loss of the Pandora, things moved so quickly that Moonbyul didn’t have a chance to process it all. In the immediate aftermath of that night, there was chaos. Tears, screaming, alcohol, Hyuna showing up at all hours of the night, Elly calling her to tell her how much she hated her. In fact, it wasn’t until that very moment, sitting inside the so-clean-it-was-almost-scary #9 dorm of the Unity that Moonbyul remembered the scars at all.

Where did someone _get_ scars like that?

Had Moonbyul’s attempt at provoking Hyoyeon worked _too_ well? In her haste, and her malice, had she actually gotten it right?

“Fuck,” she whispered. She dropped the bag of peas on the nightstand, deciding that she didn’t deserve her ice pack at all. If she was right, and Hyuna had endured something terrible, she’d earned that punch. It still didn’t justify what she’d done, or how badly she’d hurt Elly, but it still hadn’t been Moonbyul’s place to ever mention it, even if she _didn’t_ know it was true.

And now she had to face the fact that she was every bit the asshole Hyoyeon always thought that she was, and that maybe she deserved a little bit more than a fat lip.

She slid down the bed and rested her head on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling and wallowing in her own personal brand of self-pity. She rubbed her face with her hands, careful not to touch her mouth, and tried haplessly to go through all of her memories of Hyuna, wondering if this was, in fact, more obvious to others than it had been to her. Had she been so wrapped up in her own problems with Hyuna that she hadn’t noticed other signs, other scars? Had it been spoken about, clear as day, right in front of her, but she’d been too busy shooting daggers across the dinner table to pay her any mind?

Was Moonbyul really that self-centered, that narrow-minded?

“Sorry to bother everyone,” came a voice from nowhere. Moonbyul lifted her hands and sat up, looking around her room for a person, but found only a small speaker near the door – the Unity’s intercom system. (It was cute that they _had_ an intercom system. The Pandora’s communication system had been a three-pack of walkie-talkies.) “I don’t like to use the ship-wide PA, but this is important.” Once her brain caught up to her ears, Moonbyul realized it was Yuri that was speaking. “I need everyone to grab their tablets and make sure they’re all logged into the Unity’s chat server. Sunny and I just added a new room. It’s encrypted and unhackable.”

“ _Virtually_ unhackable,” Sunny’s voice interjected.

“Yeah, yeah, right, whatever,” Yuri said hastily, and Moonbyul pictured her swatting at Sunny as she spoke. “Just make sure you’re logged onto the right server. Things are about to get messy and we’re going to post all of our updates there. It’s faster that way, and more secure. We’re going to need all hands on deck soon. Just be vigilant. That’s it. Rest while you can. See you all at dinner.”

The intercom clicked off and Moonbyul decided to stay upright. This was the first time she’d really taken a good look around her room. When she wasn’t roaming around the ship or getting her ass kicked, Moonbyul mostly spent her time in the engine room with Solar. She only retreated to her dorm to go to sleep, and that was just because every time she tried to go to _Solar’s_ room, the doctor looked at them like she knew all of their secrets. (And what _did_ Hyerin really know? She was the strong and silent type, and Moonbyul had an inkling that she had dirt on everyone on-board, even the new guys she’d only known for a week.)

Though the Unity was a massive ship, the room itself wasn’t very big. It was nondescript and tidy, reminding Moonbyul of a hotel room – there was a queen-sized bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a framed picture of what appeared to be a random nebula and a tiny bathroom with a toilet and a shower. There were light panels on the ceiling and a lamp on the nightstand. Beside the lamp was a small remote, and Moonbyul was pretty sure it controlled the lights, plus a TV screen that she figured was somewhere in the wall above the dresser.

To Moonbyul’s knowledge, the ship boasted twelve bedrooms, and she figured all of them looked the same. (Except for maybe Solji and Hyerin’s. The captain and her wife had the master suite, right?) Between the repeated floorplan and the fact that they were parked, the Unity really did feel more like a lodging house than anything. There were thirteen of them on-board and while they were in the midst or something terribly serious, it was beginning to feel more like a sorority house than a spaceship. (Only, unlike her last time at a sorority house, Moonbyul wasn’t having _nearly_ as much casual sex.)

With nothing better to do (what use was an engineer when the engine wasn’t even running?), Moonbyul pulled her tablet from the duffle bag beneath her bed and found the secure server Yuri had been talking about. Everyone but Amber and Krystal had logged in, and Moonbyul had a hunch that that had something to do with the fact that they were sharing the dorm #11.

Sunny and Yuri had typed up a long introductory post and formatted it neatly into a bulleted list. Apparently, in the time it took for Moonbyul to get punched in the face, there had been some crucial developments. Some were good. Some were bad. Too many were centered around Kim Heechul.

The good news was that the Termite had gotten their hands on the whole tracker, and it appeared to be functioning beautifully. They were, quite literally, on their way to pick up Kwon Jiyong, and they were making great time. The tracker was leading them, one breadcrumb at a time, to what appeared to be a moon mine. Though they hadn’t been able to safely and securely confirm with Seunghyun that that was where Jiyong was staked out, everyone on the Termite was confident that they’d have him in a matter of hours.

The bad news was that Kim Heechul was tracking the Termite’s every move. Yuri and Sunny weren’t sure how that was possible, but they didn’t care. It didn’t matter to them how he’d locked onto them – it just mattered that they find a way to throw him off the scent. At the very least, it seemed like Heechul trusted Taeyeon completely. He knew nothing of the alliance between the four ships, and nothing of Seunghyun’s involvement. As far as he was concerned, his little errand girl was doing her due diligence, bouncing around every corner of the universe looking for Jiyong, just like she’d been paid to do.

But it was pretty obvious, even to a grease monkey like Moonbyul, why they needed to scramble Heechul’s senses. He was watching the Termite, sitting back with his ugly boots kicked up on his desk, tracking the ship’s trajectory on a big space map. He’d been providing them with clues, hints, his own line of breadcrumbs based on the intel he had. If he told them to go left and instead they went right, he’d be the first to know about it. He’d question it. And when he didn’t like the answers, he’d likely show up with a missile or some other scary space-wars projectile.

After all, he had a lot of skin in the game. For him, this had nothing to do with treason. He didn’t give a shit about the Cosmos’ law. He wanted the Bermhole, and he wanted it for his own gross, bloody reasons. Jiyong was just a means to an end for him. If he had Jiyong, he had the Bermhole, and if he had unfettered access to the most physically imposing creature in all the galaxy, well, it was game over for anyone who ever went up against Kim Heechul and the Cosmos’ private military system.

So they had to throw him off. They had to do _something_ to interfere with Heechul’s surveillance. It was of the utmost important, but they weren’t going to communicate this all to the Termite yet. They didn’t want to get to get inside their heads when they were so, so close to their target, didn’t want to risk distracting them, especially since they had no way of solving the problem yet. Once they scooped up Jiyong, and parked to regroup, then they’d tell them. Hopefully, they’d have some answers by then. For now, they just had to figure something out. Somehow, the hackers had to get into his system and change what he was seeing onscreen, something Moonbyul knew less-than-nothing about and, therefore, couldn’t possibly help with.

No, she was useless and lonely with a fat lip and a lot of regret, and she desperately wished she knew how to make the TV magically appear from nowhere.

It was amazing how life could still be such a bitch underneath a beautiful golden sky.

A soft knock on the door pulled Moonbyul from her pity party.

She grunted as she stood up, half expecting to find blonde hair and another cocked fist as soon as the door retracted back into the wall, but was pleasantly surprised to find Solar there instead.

“How’s your lip?” she asked, skipping over all pleasantries and choosing instead to take a step forward, completely closing the gap between them. She stood on her tiptoes and pinched Moonbyul’s chin with her thumb and forefinger, then leaned closer to get a better look. Moonbyul was so taken aback, she almost lost her balance, but braced herself on the doorframe and held her breath. “You need to ice it or it’s going to swell worse. Where’s the bag of peas?”

Solar pushed her way into dorm #9, not giving Moonbyul a chance to interfere, or reply.

Flustered, Moonbyul ran a hand through her hair and said, almost sarcastically, “Please come in.” By the time Moonbyul pressed the button to close the door, and leaned herself against it, Solar was sitting on the edge of her bed. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said, “since I saw you last.”

Moonbyul’s eyes went wide.

“Solar, it’s been less than an hour since you saw me last.”

Solar nodded.

“Time flies, huh?” Solar patted the spot beside her on the bed, the eagerness in her eyes leaving little room for debate. Almost begrudgingly, Moonbyul pushed off the wall and moved to sit beside her, unsure of Solar’s intentions, but certain of her own complicated feelings.

“Are you drunk?” Moonbyul countered, eyeing her carefully. “You seem like you might be drunk.”

“Did you read the post in the new server? All the updates about Heechul and Jiyong?”

“I did. Did _you_? And did you maybe chase it with some wine coolers or something?”

Solar shook her head, staring at a spot on the wall parallel to them.

“Things are getting serious,” she said, her voice taking on an unexpectedly somber tone. “Everything with Heechul tracking the Termite, and the hackers all trying to find a way to distract him long enough to break his connection, and the captains _so_ close to Jiyong now. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off and she faked a smile, remembering suddenly that she’d shown up to Moonbyul’s door with a much cheerier disposition. “It’s a lot, you know?” She turned to catch Moonbyul’s gaze, hoping her fellow engineer would do her the courtesy of ignoring the way her eyes had gone glassy.

This wasn’t the world she was used to. Hyoyeon and Hyuna? They were tough guys, brawlers, fearless space pirates. The Termite crew? They were used to bouncing around the galaxy, tracking people down and dealing with shady characters. And the Pandora girls? They’d looked death in the face every time they managed to get their ship in the air. But not the Unity.

They were spoiled. They led easy lives, and they had cushy jobs. They had a boss that took care of them, a strong, competent woman that got them lucrative gigs and paid them handsomely for what little work they actually did. They’d thrown their hat in the ring because they were arrogant. Their quality of life had made them cocky. They’d had it so easy for so long, and after so many back-to-back successes, they’d genuinely convinced themselves that they were the best of the best.

But they weren’t the best. Not by a longshot. They weren’t even the best of the four crews working together to find Jiyong and protect the Bermhole. They were, essentially, a bunch of rich kids who’d never heard the word _no_ and they were, for the first time in their professional careers, facing true, bone-deep, galaxy-wide danger. And it was terrifying.

One wrong move by any of the hackers, one wrong move by any of the captains, and they could all go down. And then what? Jiyong could end up in the hands of Kim Heechul, or another crew that would turn him over to the Cosmos. Heechul would surely kill all four members of the Termite if he discovered they’d double-crossed him, and he wouldn’t rest until he had every Berm in creation under his thumb. What did that mean for Jiyong? Torture? Execution? And what about the rest of them? No doubt, if they were found to be aiding and abetting a felon, they’d be prosecuted for treason.

It was all a very far cry from their usual gigs – exploring the Cosmos, sampling rocks and furthering Sooyoung’s knowledge of the galaxy.

“We’re useless, you know,” Solar said, turning back to face the wall. “Me, you and Amber. Kind of hard to take care of the engine when we’re parked.”

Moonbyul smirked.

“I had that very same thought,” she admitted. She considered putting a hand on Solar’s back, a purely platonic gesture just to let her know that she was listening and that she understood, but hesitated. Solar was vulnerable like this. She’d been trying to hide her fears behind a big, wide smile but that façade had cracked open like a coconut shell, and the woman sitting beside her was feeling anything _but_ optimistic. “But, hey, look on the bright side. If Heechul _does_ find out what’s going on, he’s definitely going after us first. Then they’re going to need three handy-dandy mechanics to make this ship go super fast, right?” Despite herself, Solar laughed, and Moonbyul did, too. “Ah! I saw that. You smiled. See? It’s not all so bad. And the truth is, Solar, you’re right. There’s nothing you and I can do right now but wait. We’re here if anyone needs us but, unfortunately, we just need to bide our time. Luckily, we’re surrounded by a bunch of really smart people. They’ll figure it out. I promise.”

There was a beat. Solar turned all of this over in her head, then shifted gears.

“Let’s talk abut you,” Solar said, trying to discreetly wipe her tears before turning back to look Moonbyul in the eye. “What happened earlier between you and Hyoyeon? Do I need to go kick her ass? Defend her honor?”

Moonbyul snorted.

“You are so cute,” she said, trying to picture petite, soft-spoken Solar facing off with a woman that kept knives strapped to her ankles. “But I really wouldn’t recommend trying to fight Hyoyeon. I once watched her body-slam a guy at a bar for taking her pool table. She broke two of her ribs and he apologized to _her_.”

Solar swallowed.

“Perhaps I could write a strongly-worded letter,” she amended.

Smirking, Moonbyul said, “Don’t waste your time. I’ve been doing some thinking, too.”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

Moonbyul pointed to her lip.

“I think I deserved the punch after all.”

Solar frowned.

“Don’t say that.”

“Hyoyeon, despite her many flaws, made some good points.” Moonbyul figured that they were using this biding-their-time thing to open up and share secrets, so it was only fair is she participated, too. “Elly is my best friend and my love for her sometimes skews my perception of things. I’ll always hate Hyuna for what she did to her but…” She bit her lip and looked down at the floor – pristinely white, just like everything else. “It’s possible that Hyuna’s been through a lot more than I ever realized. It doesn’t excuse what she did but I think I’ve been an even bigger bitch to her than I should’ve been.” She shrugged her shoulders, inhaling deeply, then laughed at the absurdity of it all – the world could very well have been ending, the apocalypse imminent, Armageddon looming just overhead, and while millions upon millions of Cosmos citizens were none the wiser, two completely in-the-loop engineers sat in the dorm of a luxury ship, unable to contribute to the efforts in any way, spilling their darkest secrets and deepest fears. The more she thought about it, the more hilarious it became. “Something about the fate of the universe balancing precariously on the edge of a cliff really makes you introspective, huh?”

Solar didn’t respond, at least not verbally. As it turned out, she’d been considering the precariousness of their situation, too, and before Moonbyul could make sense of any of it, Solar was in her lap, her hands in Moonbyul’s hair. She kissed her with a certain desperation, but there was still a distinctively _Solar_ softness to it. She cupped Moonbyul’s face, her fingertips surprisingly cold against Moonbyul’s skin, and kissed her just like the world was ending.

And maybe it was.

It took Moonbyul a few seconds to register what was happening. Though the kiss hurt her lip, she never wanted it to end. She wanted more of it. She felt like she’d been injected with pure heroin and now she was an addict. But there was still a very diligent, very chivalrous (albeit very small and obnoxious) part of her brain that was pumping the breaks.

She’d known she’d wanted Solar the moment she first laid eyes on her, but she didn’t want it unless it Solar wanted it, too. She didn’t want it unless it were real. And jumping somebody just because you’re nervous and afraid you might get blown up tomorrow? That wasn’t real.

“Wait,” Moonbyul said, breathless. She put her hands on Solar’s shoulders, pulling away despite every cell in her body screaming at her for being so stupid. “Solar, you are a nervous wreck right now. This might not be a good idea. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you, especially since you’re upset. I didn’t–”

“Shh,” said Solar, shaking her head. “Stop. None of that. You said it yourself. We have nothing to do. We have nothing but time to kill. And I don’t know about you, but this is probably my _favorite_ way to kill time.” She gave Moonbyul a smile, wry and naughty, but still somehow the picture of innocence and femininity in a pale pink, miraculously not-grease-stained button up shirt. And, as if scripted, as soon as Moonbyul noticed her pretty shirt, it was gone. Solar hooked her fingers in the front of her blouse and pulled it open, sending two buttons flying to the pristinely white floor, and giving Moonbyul an eyeful of pristinely black lace. “You know that I like you, and I know that you like me. We could literally die tomorrow, or go be thrown in jail for treason. You know that, right? The stakes are high, Moonbyul. Really, really high.” Moonbyul didn’t have a response to that. She wasn’t listening. She hadn’t even blinked yet. Smirking, Solar covered Moonbyul’s hands with her own and guided them to her waist. Her skin was so smooth that Moonbyul actually _whimpered_. “You want to die without us ever getting a chance to sleep together?”

Moonbyul swallowed hard.

“No, ma’am,” she said. “No, I do not.”

Solar’s smile was brighter now, emblazoned by the realization that there was freedom in futility. The engineers couldn’t help, and the universe was going to do whatever it was going to do. Why not use professional purgatory as an excuse to have a little fun?

“Excellent,” she said, licking her lips before pushing Moonbyul back and watching her fall gracefully against the mattress. A second later, Solar fell on top of her, giggling and covering any exposed skin with quick, soft kisses.

If this was Armageddon, Moonbyul thought, staring up at the ceiling with renewed interest, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

Elly had known it was a mistake _as_ she was making it, so why couldn’t her heart give her a break?

Pain was the body’s way of letting you know that something was wrong. It was a red flag, an alarm bell. Elly had read an article once about a woman whose leg was nearly severed in a car accident, but who felt no pain from her wounds. Her brain looked at the injury, understood that the body was in trouble, and decided that it needn’t send out painful stimuli as a response. Why bother? The woman knew she was in trouble. She didn’t need the pain to tell her. She already knew.

Elly knew that she’d fucked up by sleeping with Hyuna, and she knew she was in trouble, so why the fuck did she need the pain, too?

She’d thought for sure that she’d maxed herself out on pain. She’d fallen in love, been cheated on, left to wander the universe alone, _reunited_ with the one-true-love that had broken her heart and then gotten shot. What could hurt worse than any of that?

As it turned out, relapsing made all of that look like child’s play.

And relapsing on Hyuna, she’d found out, was akin to drinking poison.

It was killing her from the inside, a pain that started in her gut and radiated outward, engulfing her entire body until she felt like nothing more than a mound of raw flesh.

That was the ironic part, of course. She’d traded pleasure for pain, and pain for pleasure. Was it worth it? Was erasing two years of progress worth two good orgasms? It depended on which part of Elly you were asking. The realistic part, the stoic, pragmatic part that had spent twenty-four months in the air, working her fingers to the bone to keep her ship alive and forget all about Kim Hyuna? That part was devastated, betrayed, crushed. But the other part? The sad, lonely, pathetic and sickly part that was still every bit as in love with Hyuna as it had been all those years ago? That part didn’t regret a single minute.

It had been half a day since they’d fucked on the floor of the engine room.

Hyuna, perhaps just as confused as Elly, hadn’t bothered to stick around and cuddle. For that, Elly was deeply grateful. She gave her an awkward kiss on the forehead, then scurried to some not-quite-far-enough corner of the ship. (Elly made an educated guess that she was hiding out in Krystal’s office. Besides the engine room, it was the only remotely private part of the ship.)

The good news was that Elly regained full feeling in her leg just about an hour later. Did that leave her with sixty minutes to lay in silence on the mattress where she’d just fucked her ex-girlfriend? Yes it did. But it also meant that she was able to get up, take a shower, change her clothes and spend a long time sitting in the tiny bathroom, going over each and every individual moment that led her to this point.

She had her phone with her, and her fingers ran aimlessly over the screen, trying to decide what to do next. She couldn’t very well reach out to Sunny or Moonbyul. Not only would they be pissed at her (Moonbyul might actually break up with her), but it would distract them from whatever work they were doing onboard the Unity. No, that was a conversation better left to have in-person.

And even though there was a remarkably high (seemingly inevitable) chance that Solji and Taeyeon _heard_ them, Elly couldn’t exactly talk to them about it either. They were so close to Jiyong that they could almost taste it, and having sex mid-mission wasn’t the most professional choice she’d ever made. It was bad enough she’d gotten shot and couldn’t pull her weight for a few shifts but now she was bringing her relationship drama (she hated having to call it that) into things, too?

She was lucky if Solji and Taeyeon didn’t walk away from this _hating_ her.

So Elly did the only thing she _could_ do – she texted the doctor.

It was a quick message, short and sweet: _I had sex with Hyuna. I don’t know what to do now._ She typed it as fast as she could, trying not to actually look directly at the screen, then threw her phone in her bag, and threw her bag under the bottom bunk.

If anyone could save her, it was Hyerin, but that didn’t mean she had the guts to face a response just yet.

Lucky for her, the world didn’t stop turning just because her heart was in turmoil.

Taeyeon’s voice came through the bedroom’s intercom speaker, loud and clear.

“We’ll be landing in about ten minutes,” she said, sounding almost proud. Despite her initial reluctance to join the mission (they _had_ blitzed her and kidnapped her team after all), Taeyeon had become something of an unexpected leader. The Termite was her ship, which made her the true captain among captains, and, while meek, it was a role she filled well. “It’s chilly on these moon mines, so bundle up and get your asses into the cockpit. We’ve got a VIP to pick up.”

So that was it, then. They’d arrived. They’d come so far, yet they still had so far to go. They’d pluck Jiyong from whatever obscure mine he’d been calling home, and then what? They had to get back to the other end of the galaxy and deliver him to a wormhole. How would that work? How could they possibly get out of this unscathed?

Elly dug through her bag and looked for something warm to wear, but the heaviest thing she’d packed was an old college hoodie. Huffing, she pulled it over her clothes, ignoring the way her phone vibrated. A response from Hyerin? Probably. But Elly would rather face certain destruction out on the moon mine with the treasonous felon than see what her morally-sound new friend had to say about her most recent transgression. As soon as she was dressed, she ran from her bag like her ass was on fire.

The other three captains were already squeezed into the pit, all donning thicker jackets.

They’d already begun their descent. This moon was a tiny rock meant for tiny aircrafts. There was a long, narrow landing strip that fed into what was essentially a parking lot. All of the ships there were even smaller than the Termite, and were probably the personal aircrafts of the miners who likely lived on Naengdam, the closest planet to the mines. It was essentially the biggest factory in a small town, the most logical and practical place to work even if it wasn’t the most pleasant, and all business centered around it.

Taeyeon brought them down smoothly, and Elly hoped that nothing about their arrival seemed out of place. By all accounts, this was, perhaps, the most innocuous spot in the entire galaxy. It was why Jiyong and his friends had chosen it. It was a run-of-the-mill moon mine, rocky and cold, and there were thousands more just like it. Small ships came and went all day, miners traveling to and from work, and commercial shipping liners coming to pick up the day’s haul. Nobody would look twice at another ship pulling into the lot.

At least that was what Elly hoped.

They landed in silence, an expectant tension hanging over them like a fog.

Elly stood near the door, shooting subtle glances at Hyuna and trying to read her. Was she freaking out, too? Or was she too lost in the job to remember what they’d done just a few hours before?

When the ship was parked, Taeyeon stood up and cracked her neck.

“Well,” she said, clapping her hands together before pulling the tracker out of her coat pocket and waving it at the group. “Let’s go get him.”

Taeyeon had been right – it was cold. Elly shoved her hands into her pockets and tried to retreat into her sweatshirt like a turtle. Though Taeyeon carried the tracker, Hyuna lead the pack, walking confidently. Had she been reinvigorated by what they’d done in the engine room, or was she simply motivated by her own adrenaline?

They were walking, of course, towards a mine. It looked like a cave to Elly, though it had what appeared to be a reinforced metal doorway braced around the mouth. A metal track led inside, and motorized carts brought rocks and silver from the mine to a building on the other side of the parking lot.

“Mining perplexes me,” Solji said, shrugging her shoulders to shield her ears from the wind. “Technology has come so far, and yet mining remains so archaic.”

“We’re out in the sticks,” said Taeyeon, looking down at the tracker but glancing up at Solji to acknowledge that she’d been listening. “We’re in the country, not the city. They’re still behind on the times. Their ships probably all still use fuel instead of anti-matter.” From the back of the line, Elly frowned, remembering the Pandora, and Taeyeon frowned, remembering Elly. “No offense.”

The sky above them was dark, clouded with pollution, and the ground was packed hard beneath their feet. It was a harsh environment, not a place anyone would want to live full-time, and the stench of metal, dirt and acidic earth grew stronger as they reached the mouth of the mine. Men in blue jumpsuits mulled about, carrying shovels and axes, pushing carts and speaking loudly. None of them paid the girls any mind.

“Where is he?” asked Hyuna, stopping. She was looking around, scanning the face of each and every man around them and coming to the conclusion that none of them were Jiyong.

Taeyeon shrugged, passing her. She was distracted, a slave to the convoluted tracking system that had delivered them to this planet. It was like they’d bonded in the process of navigating to the mine, a quirky human-technology friendship born amidst the chaos.

“The tracker says he should be right here,” she said, head down as she walked deeper into the entrance of the mine.

“Shouldn’t we have face masks?” Solji asked, covering her mouth with the bend of her elbow.

“Hey,” said Hyuna, reaching for Taeyeon’s sleeve. “Maybe we shouldn’t be walking right into–”

“Well, well, well,” said a voice from the shadows. It came from a patch of darkness, a spot that she sun couldn’t quite reach, but a spot that hadn’t been illuminated by the wall-lights arranged deeper inside the mine. Hyuna grabbed Taeyeon’s arm and pulled her back, putting herself between the voice and the rest of the group. There wasn’t a visible threat, just a shadowy figure amongst the dirt and grime.

There was a laugh, dry and low, and then the figure, a living shadow in its own right, stepped into the light.

His orange hair had faded to a rusty, dingy blonde and his blue jumpsuit was soiled with mud and soot. His smile was crooked, arrogant, the smirk of a man with far too much power and all the knowledge in the galaxy about how to wield it. His skin was dirty, too, smeared with grease, and he wore thick gloves that probably protected his skin from the cold as much as they protected him from sharp rocks. But he slipped the gloves off his hands and threw them in the nearest cart before taking a step closer, exhaling into them, and three out of four captains had to fight the urge to take a step back.

Their silence was revered. The weight of this introduction wasn’t wasted on them, but recycled into something that felt strangely like respect. They didn’t know him, but after all this time, it sure felt like they did. They’d spent months looking for him, first separately, then together.

It had all led to this.

“You made it,” he said, sounding strangely relieved. He smiled again, looking first to Solji, then to Taeyeon, then Elly, and back to Hyuna. He clicked his tongue playfully and cocked his head to the side, sizing them up, then said, “I guess you were the ones to crack the code, huh? Pretty impressive.” With that, he reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out the other tracker, using it to gesture to the one still in Taeyeon’s hands, and grinned like a kid showing off a toy. “These probably helped, though, right? Seunghyun was smart to have me use them.” He shoved it back into his pocket, then stared blankly at the girls like he’d just remembered something important. “Where _are_ my manners?” he scolded, then offered a clean hand to Hyuna who shook it with an awed hesitation. “I’m Kwon Jiyong. It’s nice to finally meet you. You’ve probably been looking for me for a while.” He looked from face to face like he was somehow able to learn everything there was to know about each of them just by looking into their eyes. When he’d had his fill, when he’d figured them out and was satisfied with what he learned, he stood up straighter. Then, smirking, he asked, “What took you so long?”


End file.
